Santa Monica Studios has released a major free update for God of War Ragnarök which adds a bunch of new things along with New Game+. Here’s everything you need to know about it.
What is New Game+?
New Game+ in God of War Ragnarök works similarly to how it works in other games like Witcher 3 or the Dark Souls games. It is a way for the player to experience the game from the beginning, but while retaining all the items and progress from the previous playthrough.
This essentially allows the player to access more of the world right from the beginning and also allows the player to use their higher-leveled equipment, skills, and weapons against early-game enemies.
However, there are two exceptions; Players will not have access to Hex and Sonic arrows and they will not be able to use some of the abilities of the Draupnir Spear until they get to a point in the playthrough.
Players will also have the ability to change the difficulty setting if they want a challenge or want to tone things down.
How to start New Game+?
To start God of War Ragnarök‘s New Game+ mode, players will have to have finished the main story at least once and have a save file after the end of the main story.
Once the players have finished the main story and see the credits rolling, they will be able to go to the main menu and select the “New Game+” option.
When selecting it, they will be asked to select a save file based on which the New Game+ will start. The players will be then asked to pick a manual save slot and then choose the difficulty they want to play in.
Armor available in New Game+
Several new armor sets and weapons will be available for players exclusively in NG+
- Armor of the Black Bear is essentially just a black version of the starting armor, with the popular cape Kratos wears at the start of the game.
- The Spartan Armor is a shirtless version of the starting armor.
- The Ares Armor from God of War 2018
- The Zeus Armor
- The Spartan Apsis Shield, which is basically the guardian shield. It has a smaller parry window but deals more damage.
Thirteen existing armor sets get a whole new look and can be purchased only in NG+ from the Dwarven shops.
Also Read: God of War Ragnarök: New Game+ explained
New Enchantments
There are 19 new Equipment Perk Enhancements that can be bought from the Huldra Brothers for Gilded Coins (a new form of currency in NG+). These Perks are basically just imitations of the perks of armor and so they cannot be stacked with the Perks of said armor.
9 new Burden Enchantments have been added to make the game even more challenging. They can be bought for 10,000 Hacksilvers each.
Berserkers will drop exclusive Enhancements that boost Kratos’ stats after they are defeated.
Progression and leveling
Some major additions to the progression and leveling have been made.
- The biggest addition is the increase in the level cap.
- Level 9 equipment can be upgraded into Plus versions and doing so give players Gilded Coins.
- XP can be used to upgrade skill mod tokens
- Yggdrasil Dew can now be dropped from Nornir Chests.
Changes to bosses, enemies, etc
- Valkyrie Queen Gna and King Hrolf Kraki will fight differently in NG+ and so cannot be fought using the same stats as before.
- The optional bosses Ormstunga and The Hateful have new moves in their arsenal which they will use exclusively in NG+.
- All bosses and mini-bosses will have runic armor in the “Give Me No Mercy” and “Give Me God of War” difficulties and enemies can turn elite during combat in the “Give Me No Mercy” difficulty.
- New enemies can be fought in the Niflheim training arena and players will also be able to play as Kratos or Atreus.
- The Niflheim arena will offer Freya, Brok, Sindri, Angrboda, Ingrid, Thor, Thrúd, and Atreus (with Kratos) as companions to fight alongside you.
Other changes
Other less significant changes include the ability to skip cutscenes and the “Black and White Render Mode” which can be enabled in the Graphics and Camera settings menu.