Master Elden Ring’s New Game Plus with strategic timing, optimal preparation, and advanced replay tactics
Understanding New Game Plus (NG+) Mechanics
Once you conquer the final boss and witness one of Elden Ring’s multiple endings, a crucial choice awaits: whether to immediately begin a New Game Plus cycle or continue exploring the Lands Between with your empowered character.
After completing Elden Ring’s main narrative, you gain the ability to replay the entire adventure while retaining your character’s progression, equipment, and collected items. This guide details how New Game Plus functions and how to leverage it strategically.
The Souls series has historically offered NG+ options, but implementation varies. Titles like Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne automatically transition players to increased difficulty cycles once credits finish rolling. In contrast, Dark Souls 2 and 3 introduced player agency, allowing you to initiate “Journey 2” from a bonfire when prepared.
Elden Ring follows the optional approach. Upon campaign completion, the game presents a clear prompt asking if you wish to commence New Game Plus. Selecting “No” returns you to the Roundtable Hold in your current world state, preserving all exploration progress. This design respects player investment, acknowledging that many will have unfinished side quests, unexplored dungeons, or undiscovered secrets.
Elden Ring’s system mirrors Dark Souls 2 and 3, providing control over when you escalate to higher difficulty tiers rather than forcing immediate progression. This player-friendly design acknowledges the game’s massive scale—with over 100 hours of potential content—by not penalizing those who wish to complete everything before restarting.
When credits conclude, you’ll receive a straightforward option to begin New Game Plus. Declining places you back at the Roundtable Hold with the world unchanged, enabling continued exploration. You can later trigger NG+ from any Site of Grace by selecting the “Begin New Journey” option, providing complete timing control.
Strategic Timing: When to Begin Your Second Journey
Essentially, Elden Ring permits NG+ initiation at your discretion. If you reject the initial post-credit prompt, you’ll reappear at the Roundtable Hold with the entire open world still accessible in its completed state.
From this point, you can complete lingering side narratives, hunt for rare equipment, challenge missed world bosses, or simply explore regions previously bypassed. Significant content remains accessible even after the main story concludes, including hidden areas like Mohgwyn Palace, Haligtree secrets, and numerous catacombs/caves.
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The ability to delay NG+ enables completion of unfinished side quests—many of which offer unique rewards like legendary weapons, sorceries, or incantations. Given Elden Ring’s immense scope, with countless locations to discover and items to collect, concluding the primary narrative shouldn’t automatically trigger NG+. Initiate it only when you feel satisfied with your first playthrough accomplishments.
Beginning NG+ prematurely forces you to replay the entire game to reaccess late-game content missed initially. This makes revisiting specific areas, hunting unexplored zones, and gathering overlooked items substantially more challenging since you must reprogress through the narrative.
Common Mistake Alert: Many players rush into NG+ after the final boss, only to realize they missed essential items like the Bolt of Gransax (required for Legendary Armament achievement) or failed to complete NPC questlines offering unique spells. Since these become inaccessible until reaching late-game areas again in NG+, careful preparation is crucial.
Pro Strategy: Before considering NG+, defeat all remembrance bosses (both mandatory and optional), collect all legendary weapons/talismans, complete all painting puzzles, and finish at least one ending-specific questline (Frenzied Flame, Age of Stars, etc.) to maximize carryover benefits.
Advanced Preparation and Optimization
New Game Plus in Elden Ring elevates difficulty through increased enemy health pools, damage output, and damage resistance percentages. Therefore, securing desired gear, skills, and upgrades during your initial playthrough is strongly recommended. Thorough preparation makes subsequent journeys smoother and provides greater build flexibility.
Retained Elements: You keep all weapons, armor, talismans, spells, ashes of war, crafting materials, cookbooks, crystal tears, gestures, and character levels. Flask upgrades and Sacred Flask tears remain. Great Runes and their associated powers persist, though you must reactivate them by defeating respective Shardbearers again.
Lost Elements: Story progression resets completely. All Sites of Grace revert to undiscovered status. Key items related to narrative advancement (like Dectus Medallion halves, Academy Glintstone Key, etc.) are removed. Quest progress resets entirely—NPCs return to initial states and locations.
Critical Pre-NG+ Checklist:
1. Collect all Ancient Dragon Smithing Stones (8 available per cycle) for maximum weapon upgrades
2. Secure all Larval Tears for respect flexibility
3. Obtain all Memory Stones to maximize spell slots
4. Purchase all available smithing stones from Twin Maiden Husks
5. Complete all walking mausoleums to duplicate remembrances
6. Collect all ritual pots, perfume bottles, and cracked pots
7. Unlock all flask of wondrous physic tears
So that covers Elden Ring’s New Game Plus fundamentals. For deeper mechanics exploration, consult our additional resources below:
How to respec your character | Academy Glintstone Key | Smithing Stones | Elden Ring Stonedigger Troll | Elden Ring Margit the Fell Omen | Elden Ring Tree Sentinel | Elden Ring Grave Warden | Elden Ring Pumpkin Head | Elden Ring Soldier of Godrick | Elden Ring Godrick the Grafted | Elden Ring Red Wolf of Redagon | Elden Ring Rennala | Best Elden Ring settings | Elden Ring Flying Dragon Agheel | Elden Ring horse guide
NG+ Difficulty Scaling and Pro Tactics
Elden Ring’s New Game Plus implements progressive difficulty scaling with each cycle. While exact percentage increases aren’t officially documented, community testing indicates approximately 30-40% health and damage boosts for enemies in NG+, with further increases in NG+2 through NG+7, where difficulty plateaus.
Advanced Optimization Tactics:
• Status Effect Focus: Enemies gain increased resistance to bleed, frost, scarlet rot, and madness in higher cycles. Consider diversifying damage sources rather than relying solely on status procs.
• Defensive Stacking: With enemy damage significantly increased, prioritize Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman, boiled crab consumables, and armor with high physical negation.
• Spell Efficiency: Enemy health pools make FP management crucial. Cerulean Hidden Tear (unlimited FP temporarily) and Carian Filigreed Crest (reduces skill FP cost) become increasingly valuable.
• Multiplayer Consideration: NG+ doesn’t restrict multiplayer matching based on cycle. A NG+7 player can cooperate with someone in NG, though enemy stats adjust to host’s world state.
Common Pitfall: Players often assume their max-level character will breeze through NG+. However, damage output scales less dramatically than enemy health pools, potentially making certain late-game bosses harder than during initial playthroughs if your build isn’t optimized.
Progression Strategy: For players targeting multiple NG+ cycles, focus on collecting all bell bearings in your first playthrough, as these carry over and allow immediate purchase of upgrade materials in subsequent cycles, bypassing early-game material scarcity.
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