Santa Monica Studio had promised that New Game Plus was coming to God of War Ragnarök after the Photo Mode patch, yet didn’t specify exactly when. The developer has now released that update out of the blue and it not only contains the new mode, but also a lot more gear and options to further change the experience.
New Game Plus, as explained in great detail on the PlayStation Blog, gives players all the weapons and equipment they had at the end of the game, including the Draupnir Spear. However, areas that require the spear or the specific arrow types will be locked until the player would normally unlock those areas in the main questline.
New Game Plus isn’t just the same game with the same gear, though. New Skill Mods, Platinum Tier Labors, and Yggdrasil Dew drops in Nornir Chests mean players can further modify leveled-up attacks in the skill tree, unlock new rewards after completing tasks, and juice up their bases stats even more, respectively.
There’s also more armor for players to earn and experiment with. One of these is actually one Kratos had in the beginning of the game: Armor of the Black Bear. This furry cloak flies off in the intro, but players can now equip it and will start their New Game Plus run wearing it. It focuses on strength and defense and rewards last-second dodges by letting out a volley of Bifröst shards.
One of the other armor sets strips the armor off Kratos. The Spartan Armor set has no perks or stats and is locked to the lowest level to give player more of a challenge. It is available for purchase at the game’s shop.
The Ares and Zeus sets have also returned from the last God of War‘s New Game Plus mode and both have seen some slight visual tweaks. The Ares gear has a higher chance to drop health stones, which set off an explosion when Kratos stomps on them; a change from the last game since it only affected the Rage meter in that entry. The Zeus armor, however, is like its prior iteration and increases melee and runic damage but also dials up the damage Kratos takes. The Ares armor is at the shop, while players can unlock the Zeus armor by defeating Gná the Valkyrie Queen and completing some Remnants of Asgard during New Game Plus.
Santa Monica Studio has also gone in and remixed 13 existing armor sets in the game by adding new colors for each of them. They can be purchased at the shop before and applied to any armor that been leveled up to 9+. However, the new Berserker Armor color can only be unlocked by once again beating the Berserker King on New Game Plus.
9+ is also the new level cap for gear, which provides more power to the equipment in question. Hitting this level also yields a Gilded Coin that players can spend on new Enchantments. These Enchantments let players take perks from one armor set and apply them to another, opening up the possibilities of what is possible. Defeating the Berserker Souls on New Game Plus also yields more Enchantments.
And while those buff Kratos, Santa Monica Studio has added Burdens that debuff him. For example, the Burden of Evasion slows Kratos down after every roll. These can be shown off through a new user interface option that tosses the difficulty and equipped Burdens on the screen, so players can flex their accomplishments.
Kratos is also getting the new Spartan Aspis shield, one that was also a cosmetic choice in the last game. This shield has a familiar logo on it and a tighter parry window, but deals more damage to compensate.
The team even switched up some enemy behaviors in the game, too. The Berserker Souls, The Hateful, Ormstunga, and Valkyrie Queen Gná all have new patterns on New Game Plus. It doesn’t stop there since the two highest settings — Give Me No Mercy or Give Me God of War — both give bosses and mini-bosses Runic Armor, so players have to use Runic attacks more strategically to win. Enemies can also now power up on Give Me No Mercy in addition to Give Me God of War, so players have to keep an eye out to see who is transforming.
Lastly, the team has added a black and white filter to the game and changed around the arena on Niflheim. It has been expanded and now lets players customize who they can play as and who joins them. It’s possible to practice as Kratos or Atreus and partner up with Freya, Brok, Sindri, Angrboda, Ingrid, Thor, or Thrúd. And while not in the PlayStation Blog post, the official patch notes explain that players can alter Mimir, Hildisvíni, Lúnda, and Ræb’s expressions in Photo Mode and also skip cutscenes in New Game Plus.
This New Game Plus update is similar to the one that the 2018 game got after launch, but far more advanced. And like that 2018 update, Ragnarök‘s New Game Plus update doesn’t add any new trophies.
Santa Monica Studio has also not announced that Ragnarök will be getting any more content updates after this (aside from trophy bug fixes the studio has already announced). However, more content is not likely since Game Director Eric Williams already told players not to expect DLC for the game. And aside from a patch that boosted performance on PlayStation 5, the original didn’t receive any big updates after getting New Game Plus.
