Starfield: Everything to Know About New Game Plus

New Game Plus in Starfield is a trip. It follows some of the rules you probably know about the mode, but goes out of its way to add new and interesting twists on a tested formula. Activating it is as you’d expect: finish the main storyline, choose to start a new game, then do it all again if you desire. What’s different in Starfield is the more freeform nature of the game, as well as the reward structure of an NG+ playthrough. We’ll be discussing the finer points in this guide.

Related: Starfield One Giant Leap: Should You Become Starborn or Return To Your Universe?

What to Know About New Game Plus in Starfield

The first and most important thing about NG+ cycles in Starfield is that they’re possible in only a few hours if you choose to shotgun the main content. Finding all the Artifacts and going through the Unity again are the only requirements to entering NG+2, NG+6, or NG+25. This is possible because, besides your personal knowledge and experience, you take nothing else into any New Game cycle. Not your ship, not your quests, not your items, weapons, exploration — none of it. Instead, there are some other rewards for entering a new game.

You Get a Better Starborn Spacesuit and a Starborn Ship

Entering New Game Plus in Starfield for the first time makes you Starborn. For sacrificing your life in your old universe, you get a swanky Starborn spacesuit, plus one of the Starborn Guardian ships that chased you around in base game. The higher your New Game cycle, the better your Starborn armor piece becomes, culminating at NG+10, where you get the Hunter’s suit.

Your Starborn Guardian ship also continues improving, making it more and more of a match for some of Starfield’s more dangerous enemies. You should still upgrade your ship in your first few NG+ cycles, as the first couple of Guardians you get, while fast and nimble, are a bit squishy. It’s possible to keep it around, as you can’t sell your Guardian ship, nor can you modify it at Starship Services vendors, but it does get much more powerful as you progress further in New Game Plus.

The Game Changes More and More

Being Starborn and flying around in a Guardian ship makes for some cool interactions, and you have additional dialog options based on your knowledge of events from a previous universe. Starfield doesn’t stop there, however. Around the time you reach NG+5 or so, many of your NPC allies start… changing, turning into alternate versions of you, being dead, or some other funky differences. These oddities do nothing to stop you from finding all the Artifacts and progressing. They’re mostly flavor, though if you end up in a NG+ cycle where all your friends are either dead or otherwise absent, romancing them becomes a bit awkward (impossible. I mean impossible).

You Can Choose Different Quest Outcomes and Collect Every Possible Weapon

The last part of New Game Plus in Starfield worth noting is it gives you the opportunity to complete every version of every quest in the game. Choose the Crimson Fleet over UC Sysdef, romance another NPC ally, or any other possible outcome of the many quests in the game. You can also collect as many of the Legendary weapons as it’s possible to find in the game, though some are locked behind specific choices.

There will, of course, come a time when you’ve done everything there is to do in Starfield, but I imagine that would a least half a dozen new game cycles of 50+ hours each. And with official Starfield mod support coming, the game will have an effectively infinite amount of content to enjoy.