God of War Ragnarök New Game Plus brings the game’s hardest challenge yet

If you thought Give Me God of War was tough, you haven't seen anything yet

God of War Ragnarök has finally been graced with a New Game Plus mode, five months after the game first released. If you’re thinking “hey, that’s a bit of a long time for something as simple as a new game plus mode,” you’d better hold your horses, because Sony Santa Monica have gone all out.

New Game Plus, which is available as a free update to God of War Ragnarök from today, brings with it a bunch of new equipment, a higher level cap, more enchantments, and more. There’s even an extra difficult mode for those wanting a big challenge.

As you’d expect from a new game plus mode, all of your weapons, equipment, and skills will carry over from your old save file, although you won’t be able to use the Draupnir Spear to unlock certain areas until you’re supposed to.

When starting a new game plus run, you’ll be automatically equipped with the Armor of the Black Bear, an armor set mimicking the look Kratos was rocking in the opening scene of Ragnarök. It’s focused on strength and defense, and will fire off a volley of Bifröst shards when you perform a last-second dodge.

Newly added outfits both look cool and give you neat perks

The fan favorite Ares and Zeus armor sets will also return from God of War 2018, with the Ares Armor giving a chance to drop Health Stones on hit, and the Zeus Armor massively increasing your damage output, at the cost of massively increased damage input. It’s high risk and high reward, and sounds like a lot of fun to mess around with.

The biggest addition for hardcore players though is the Spartan Armor, which has no perks, no stats, and locks you at Power Level 1 for as long as you have it equipped. That effectively means you’ll stay as weak as possible for the majority of the game, which is sure to delight those who enjoy getting their faces stomped by boss fights.

There’s also a new class of enchantments that give negative effects, such as applying the frost status effect after rolling, to make the game even more difficult. There’s even a UI option to show the currently selected difficulty and any burdens applied, just so your followers on Twitter or Twitch know exactly how much of a Gamer God you are.

There’s countless more changes, additions, and upgrades available in the update, all of which you can read about on the official PlayStation Blog. Suffice to say, though, God of War fans will have plenty of reason to sink another 30 hours into the game.