Last updated: 3 July 2026

Elden Ring New Game Plus Guide: What Carries Over

Beating Elden Ring for the first time unlocks New Game Plus (called "Journey 2" in-game) — a fresh playthrough that keeps your character intact but resets the world and ramps up the difficulty. Here is exactly what you keep, what you lose, and how much tougher enemies and bosses actually get.

01How to Start New Game Plus

After defeating one of the game's final bosses and watching the ending, you are given the option to begin Journey 2 immediately. If you decline, nothing is lost — you can start it later whenever you want.

1. Rest at the Site of Grace inside Roundtable Hold (or wherever you land after the credits).
2. Select Begin Journey 2 from the Grace menu.
3. Confirm — this immediately drops you back at the very start of the game, Chapel of Anticipation, with your character otherwise unchanged.

There is no way to undo this once confirmed, so make sure you have wrapped up anything you wanted to do in your current world first — unfinished questlines and unopened chests in the base game do not carry any penalty into NG+, but some quest opportunities (like certain NPC storylines) can be permanently missed if abandoned mid-way.

02What Carries Over Into NG+

New Game Plus is designed to let you keep your build while facing a harder version of the same world. The following all carry over untouched:

• Character level and total Runes — you start Journey 2 exactly as strong as you ended Journey 1.
• Weapons, shields, armor, talismans, spells, Spirit Ashes, and Ashes of War — your full loadout is intact.
• Flask upgrades — Golden Seeds and Sacred Tears you already found stay applied; flask charges remain capped at 14 total and healing potency is still capped at +12 (from Sacred Tears).
• Larval Tears, Stonesword Keys, Dragon Hearts, and Celestial Dew — any unused stock carries over, and the world resets so the same pickup locations can be collected again.
• Rune Arcs — unlike Great Runes, Rune Arcs you have not used remain in your inventory.
• Your revealed map — you do not have to rediscover terrain, only Sites of Grace.

03What Resets in NG+

The trade-off for keeping your build is that the world itself starts over:

• Great Runes do not carry over — every demigod boss must be defeated again to reclaim their Great Rune, even though you already hold the Rune Arcs to activate them once you do.
• All Sites of Grace are unlit again and every closed door, gate, and shortcut is sealed until you reopen it.
• NPC questlines and quest-specific key items (medallions, academy keys, and similar) reset to their starting state — you replay each questline from scratch.
• Scrolls, prayerbooks, and most Bell Bearings you already redeemed need to be found and turned in again.

Your character build stays powerful, but you are functionally starting the story over — treat NG+ as a harder replay, not a new-game-minus shortcut.

04How Much Harder Do Enemies and Bosses Get?

Enemy and boss health and damage both increase in NG+, and the jump is uneven by region: early-game areas like Limgrave get the biggest relative boost since bosses there need to stay threatening to an over-leveled character, while late-game areas change comparatively little.

From NG+2 onward, a smaller flat multiplier stacks on top of each further playthrough. The scaling keeps climbing through NG+7 (Journey 8), where bosses sit at roughly 40–45% more health than they had in NG+1 — that is the highest difficulty the game scales to; there is no NG+8 or beyond.

Rune drops scale up alongside enemy toughness, especially in early areas, which helps offset the extra grinding needed if you want to level further or collect more Larval Tears for respeccing.

05Should You Do New Game Plus?

• If you want a harder version of the same build: NG+ is exactly that — same gear, tougher fights, no need to relearn systems.
• If you want to try a completely different build: use a Rebirth respec (see our respec guide) at Rennala first, since your stat total carries over and Larval Tears do too.
• If you just want the platinum/100% or missed content: NG+ is also the way to pick up items or endings you missed the first time, since the world fully resets.
• If you are already struggling with the base game: there is no rush — Elden Ring has no level cap enforcement tied to NG+, so you can keep exploring, leveling and gearing up in your current playthrough before committing.