God of War Ragnarök NG+ is finally here, and it brings new gear upgrades and way more to spice up your second playthrough. Here’s everything you need to know about this free upgrade.
God of War Ragnarök NG+ is accessed through the main menu. You just pick the save slot you want to use for your NG+ save and then select the difficulty. And the NG+ features already start here as the two highest difficulties, Give Me No Mercy and Give Me God of War, have received new gameplay mechanics in your second playthrough.
Enemies that have taken damage can now charge themselves up, raise their power level, and give me no mercy, a feature previously saved for the highest difficulty in the game. So it’s smart to attack an enemy as soon as you see them charging up so they don’t become more powerful.
And in both the No Mercy and God of War difficulties, all bosses and mini-bosses now have a Runic Armor that temporarily makes them immune to stagger from runic attacks. It seems to activate when you stagger multiple times in quick succession so you can’t spam your attacks and keep a boss locked in place.
Some bosses like the Berserkers already had this in the main game but tried not to get off guard by this new mechanic in the Thor fight. So, it makes sure you are not completely destroying bosses with your endgame gear. But it is, of course, amazing to do these early fights with all the gear we gathered throughout our first playthrough.
Unleashing the Draupnir Spear and the Hilt of Skofnung on these early bosses is fun. You keep everything you earn throughout your first playthrough, including your gear skills, resources, and progression on your labors in the God of War Ragnarök NG+.
Only the Sonic and Runic arrows have to be unlocked again, which, of course, makes sense as they’re also used as a solution in Puzzles. While you already have access to the Draupnir Spear early, you cannot use it to get past the Draupnir-related obstacles early as these are blocked by some kind of windshield, presumably until you forge to spare a second time.
Even though you start the game with all your old equipment, you will wear a new armor set at the start of God of War Ragnarök NG+. Right from the get-go, you are equipped with the Armor of the Black Bear, the most requested cloaked version of Kratos’s armor that he only used at the start of the game, even though he’s wearing it on the box art, too.
So, while first, it would get removed during your early fight with Freya, now, during those same QT events, you keep the cloak on and can use it through the rest of the game. It’s more than just a visual, though; it also comes with a brand-new perk. Just in case you don’t like this new perk, you can immediately apply this at any of your level 9 armor pieces, thanks to Transmog.
There’s also good news if you’re interested in the gameplay and don’t want to experience the full story again. Because in God of War Ragnarök NG+, you can skip cutscenes. Doing so will take you through a short loading screen and immediately put you back in control of Kratos.
Some smaller scenes, like lifting the looks for Freya or fixing the realm door with broken Sindri, cannot be skipped, but you don’t have to wait for some of the longer conversations at the start of the game if you want to get the Svartalfheim as soon as possible. Although I recommend going through the game twice and seeing all the new details you can catch if you want to skip ahead, the option is there.
And there are some exciting gameplay changes waiting for you once you reach Sindri’s house and access a blacksmith. For starters, you can buy a new Shield called the Spartan Aspis. Visually, it looks like the Aspis of the Spartan rage of the previous game was unlocked by completing God of War 2018 on the highest difficulty.
This time around, however, you can simply buy it for 7500 hacksilver, which you probably already have. It has some interesting perks that change the familiar gameplay of the Guardian Shield up a bit.
And if you really want to go all the way, the three other armor sets that were added with God of War Ragnarök NG+ all have a Greek theme, two of which are immediately available at your first blacksmith visit.
The Spartan armor gives you this bare chest look and even removes the bracers to show Kratos’s scars. This one is for the hardcore players as it remains stuck on level 1 and gives you no perks or a stat boost.
There’s also a set of weapon attachments with the same idea if you want to give yourself even more of a challenge. Since the armor is stuck at level 1, Transmog is not an option, but you can apply this look to other armor pieces if you want to unleash Kratos’s abs. But if you’re looking for Greek-themed armor, the array set is also immediately available for purchase if you have the hacksilver.
It should be easy enough to gather in God of War Ragnarök NG+, as even the small chest at the beginning of the game now gives you somewhere between 8 and 10000 hacksilver. You need 58000 in total to buy this amazing red and gold armor.
It was also part of the NG+ mode for God of War 2018. The final new piece of armor, the Zeus armor, is unlocked by defeating the Valkyrie Queen Gna and completing certain remnants of Asgard in God of War Ragnarök NG+.
Here’s an interesting find at the NG+. If you did not bother with the Odin Ravens, so did not get the full Raven tier armor set, or did not do the side quest or opened every chest, you still get these items.
These are the brand new appearances you can buy, which are reskinned of these familiar sets with sometimes nice visual effects. For someone who loves red, there are a ton of great variants that you can try.
So after buying a new appearance for twenty thousand hacksilver, you can immediately find the new skin in the Transmog feature for items level 9 and up. And if you already have the gear items on level 9 before you enter God of War Ragnarök NG+, they can immediately see the four new upgrade levels after reaching Sindri’s house. In short, every item from Kratos now has four upgrade slots, raising the game’s level cap.
You only need new resources in God of War Ragnarök NG+ to get these special upgrades. Still, there’s more, and sometimes upgrading these gear items beyond level 9 gives you gilded coins, which are needed for powerful new enchantments based on exiting shield attachments and chest perks.
But because these perks are now enchantments, we can put on an amulet to combine them for the first time while still wearing a different armor set. So, way more build combinations are possible.
You will also find new burdens for sale at the blacksmith in the special item and step, and this, just like that level 1 armor, gives you some debuffs, like applying a frost effect when using the dodge roll or simply decreasing the amount of health or rage you get. These are available for a small amount of hacksilver if you want to test yourself. It’s crazy how much they added to this God of War Ragnarök NG+ mode, and it’s not even everything.
God of War Ragnarök NG+ is perfect for revisiting the boss fights. The Niflheim arena has seen some huge upgrades. However, these are only available in NG+, so you’ll have to reach this realm before accessing the new features.
But you can now pick between Kratos and Atreus, meaning you always have a way to play as the boy, even outside his specific story missions. On top of that, you can choose any companion you want, such as Kratos or Atreus, meaning we can try out new team-ups that did not exist in the main game.
Why not, if you want to see Atreus and Freya fighting side by side or a team-up between Thor and Kratos? And it’s not just more options to help out on your side, as there is a new selection of special and Elite enemies you can also fight. Special enemies like Wulver and Traveler, even though so strong but not on the mini-boss level, the elite are the real, though foes like Trekkies and Stalkers can be targeted for farming XP.
You can still use this Arena to grind XP and unlock more tokens for your skills, something that’s even more valuable with the addition of God of War Ragnarök NG+. Because for 10000 XP, you can upgrade your mods to a Plus level and enhance their effects.
Like unlocking mods, you upgrade the skill to multi-individual mods or upgrade a skill to plus-level ones, which means you unlock the upgraded version of all three mods. Apart from having the required XP, no extra steps are involved.
You can simply unlock these plus mods as soon as you want. And you can boost your passive power even more by going after the Nornier chest in God of War Ragnarök NG+, as these will reward with either still do to give you a permanent stat increase.
There are some new additions found in terms of visuals. After beating the game at least once, you unlock a Black and White Render mode to give a more cinematic vibe to your playthrough. You can access this by going to the graphics and Camera section in the settings menu and turning it on or off.
Not everything has lost its color, as most of the UI icons are still the same as before, but besides that, you can enjoy this filter while continuing your current playthrough or starting a brand-new game.
They also added new facial expression options in photo mode for other characters in Ragnarök, like Mimir, who looks like he’s staying there. A few silly ones are also available for Lúnda, the blacksmith, and Hildsvini.
The Dwarven musician in Svartalfheim called Ræb also got some new expressions when you visit him again behind the tavern’s bar. So, with these new additions, you can even create funny screens in photo mode.
While trying out God of War Ragnarök NG+ again, this NG+ update is massive. There are so many things to try out still, and we will go more in-depth on those in future articles. Thanks for reading.
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