Elden Ring New Game Plus explained: How to begin Journey 2 and what carries over

New Game Plus in Elden Ring continues the FromSoftware and Soulsborne tradition, giving you a chance to take a different path and uncover secrets you might have missed the first time around. This game might be absolutely massive, but the end of your journey is ultimately just the beginning - as like the ring, you can continue forever, in an endless, circular cycle... if you wish.

In each of the games that make up this connected-but-not Soulsborne universe, New Game Plus has always taken a slightly different form. It’s quite simple in Elden Ring, but it’s going to be interesting to see what people discover as they begin to explore their second, third, or further journeys into The Lands Between.

A couple of us have completed the game, however - so here’s what we’ve learned about Elden Ring's NG+ so far…

How does Elden Ring’s New Game Plus work?

In Elden Ring, each game is known as a ‘journey’, which means rather than being called ‘New Game Plus’, the act of starting over is referred to as starting ‘Journey 2’.

As you’d expect, New Game Plus unlocks once you defeat the final bosses and reach one of the Elden Ring endings - of which there appear to be three major versions, with different permutations of each. At that point, you’ll be asked if you want to Begin Journey 2 right away.

If you choose to, New Game Plus kicks off right away. If you don’t, you’ll be returned to Roundtable Hold in an end-game state.

The world will be as it was right before you entered the final boss chambers. You can go off into the open world and do anything you want at this stage. You can visit dungeons, defeat optional bosses, and even take on any NPC side quests still available that late in the game. Anything you do will help contribute to your Journey 2 starting state. You can use this state to upgrade weapons and spirit ashes, level up, acquire armor and other gear, complete dungeons, and find new in-game locations.

One thing you can’t do in this state is repeat the game’s final battles and/or pursue a different ending - the path to the end of the game will be locked off permanently in that journey once you’ve seen one ending. The only way to take a different path is to Begin Journey 2, aka New Game Plus, and pursue your preferred storyline there.

To do that, just head to Roundtable Hold and rest at the Table of Lost Grace in the middle of the Hold’s central chamber. As you know, this functions as a standard Site of Grace, but after you’ve defeated the final boss, you can head here to trigger New Game Plus at any time with the Begin Journey 2 button that appears there.

That option is only at this specific site of grace, and is designed solely to boot you into New Game Plus. Once you hit that button, there's no going back - your game will be reset. You do carry a bunch of stuff over, though.

What carries over to New Game Plus in Elden Ring

Once you start New Game Plus, you’ll be placed into the world of Elden Ring anew. Enemies will be powered up, and give more Runes as a result. Basically, it’s the same game, turned up to eleven.

Some older Souls games made more changes - if that's the case here remains to be seen, but it doesn't appear there's any deep secrets left to be found in New Game Plus, at least in Elden Ring's launch state - it's just a chance to replay the story, tackle different quests, and get a different ending.

Heading into Journey 2 you’ll keep your level, gear (including ashes, weapons, sorceries & incantations, notes, cookbooks, memory stones, etcetera), consumable items, Flask power and uses, access to Torrent, and so on - so you’ll go into the play-through fully powered up.

In fact, the only major things you’ll lose will be Sites of Grace (which must be discovered again), Great Runes, and any keys or key items that might allow you to skip ahead and break progression. Doors opened by Stonesword Keys are also reset and closed again.

At that point, you’re set free in the world again to conquer The Lands Between once again. Same game… but different. But still same.

For more on The Lands Between, check out our comprehensive guide to Elden Ring.