Yes, Bethesda's mighty Starfield has finally been unleashed and players are just now beginning to get to grips with this absolutely enormous space-faring RPG.
We're deep down the content mines right now, working hard to bring you our slightly delayed review, as well as making sure we have all the help and tips you need to make the most of your space odyssey across the weeks and months ahead.
As reviews have been dropping, one question that's been asked repeatedly is how does Starfield's New Game Plus mode work. There's been plenty of chatter from Bethesda and a handful of critics that the game really only gets going once you've completed the main campaign, and so players are now very keen to know exactly what it is that's making the endgame so great.
So, how does New Game Plus work in Starfield, how do you access it and what can you expect? Let's have a quick spoiler-free look!
Starfield: New Game Plus Explained (Without Spoilers!)
As you wrap up Starfield's final main story mission, you'll be faced with a choice of either starting your New Game Plus or continuing to knock around in your current game, finishing off the endless side quests and exploring at your leisure.
Don't panic too much when you hit this point though, as if you choose to just remain in your current game you can return to the mission in question at any time and kickstart your new game adventure.
But what does New Game Plus actually mean here? Well, in terms of your progress, you'll lose all of your inventory, your ships, bases, property, guns, scanning progress, accumulated cash and so on. However, you'll keep your current XP level, all of your unlocked skills and powers and all of the game's main narrative missions can now be skipped entirely if you so choose.
We can't go into too much more detail without any spoilers here, but what seems to be the enticing aspect of this late game content, beyond story aspects that shift the nature of the universe you're exploring in some way, is the fact you can keep all the powers you already have whilst gaining access to a whole bunch more new and upgraded variants that makes digging into deep exploration all the more enjoyable.
This then feeds directly into the recent chat we've seen online that tends to suggest blasting through the main campaign and keeping most of the side stuff for NG+ is the way to go. Get the story out of the way, then access new powers and traits that give everything a nice boost as you really begin to stretch your legs and explore the entirety of what's on offer.
Should You Blast Through The Main Campaign Quickly?
Do we agree that rushing the main campaign is worth doing? Well, it's still too early for us to tell in all honesty, but we really do tend to veer more on the side of just relaxing and taking everything in when it comes to Bethesda games. Is there really any rush to reach the endgame? And do you want to miss out on all the many, many side factors and other little changes and quirks that are made to your character and world you're in when you take the time to check out all the various faction quests, investigate every strange facility and so on? The choice is yours ultimately, but either way it definitely sounds as though there's plenty to enjoy here, even 100+ hours down the road.
Comments 11
@Kaloudz it terms of story it looks to me to be different story beats (if you decide to take them.)
I am not sure how different as I am still on my first play through but you are given some choices and different ways to proceed at certain points.
So I assume in NG+ if you make different choices you get different out comes (maybe?).
I am excited to find out either way.
This is really useful to know, thanks! Makes sense why that suggestion keeps cropping up now. I'll be taking my time either way, but it probably means I'll wait to fully explore certain pursuits until I've got to NG+.
@Kaloudzi I am assuming just different flavours to the steps you take on a fixed path (basing that on the fact there is a fixed set of quests for the main story.)
I am only speaking in terms of story as I said still first play through so no idea on items. It wouldn't suprise me if some better gear turned up too.
If there are items only in NG+ and you are only playing once well I imagine mods will unlock a lot of things in the future if you really want to see them for yourself without doing an NG+ run 🙂
@Kaloudz there are new aspects to the game, such as the new powers, but we don't want to spoil anything else, it's genuinely worth just getting there for yourself if you can.
This is part of what I hate about paid "Early Access". The game isn't even out yet for everyone and we are having to duck articles and spoilers online. I was on a completely unrelated video on youtube and someone was discussing the ending. *****!
I'll be taking my time with the main story and the tens of hours on side quests and faction storylines. I can't wait to see what NG+ has in store though. A lot of people who have gotten there seem blown away by it.
Winter is coming, I'll be playing this bangger all season for sure!
So does all your Story progress and Side mission reset?
@Bmartin001 Yes, but in NG+ you can skip doing the main story missions and just do side stuff and explore, hence why I think folk have been recommending just blazing through the campaign critical stuff.
So I have done new game +, technically I am new game + + as you can keep starting over multiple times to infinity (maybe).
Each time you start over you will get 2 items (no spoilers get there and find out yourself) and each subsequent fresh start those two items get better stats but you are giving up a lot too as detailed in this article.
From a stats point of view you are getting better stats on stuff and they are stronger but I am still in two minds if it's worth giving up everything just to see bigger numbers.
Without going into NG+ you can still progress just fine as far as I can tell and see 99% of all stories
As I guessed NG+ does bring up some different dialogues and there is a different progression (kind of but not. I don't want to go into detail to avoid spoilers.)
I guess it depends how important bigger numbers are to you and if you are happy to start over several times to see them.
I am looking at doing a fresh new character at the moment to try a different early game build rather than max all the things on my first character. This game is going to be around for years & years so plenty of time for all that kind of stuff.
Hmm not sure how i feel about that. I usually do the main quest of bethesda games first.
I think I will focus on what carries over like perks and research. And deck out the frontier.
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