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.