Words to Know - What is New Game Plus?

New Game Plus (or NG+) is an unlockable play mode included in some games wherein the player can replay the story with additional advantages and/or challenges. To enter New Game Plus the player must have beaten the game at least once and retained that save file. Usually the option to enter this mode is presented when selecting NEW GAME from the loading menu.

New Game Plus is offered as a reward for completing the game and as an incentive for further replay. Typical features of a NG+ experience can include retaining your inventory, character level, accumulated talent/skill assignments and any acquired bonus effects from your previous playthrough - though it may not be the player alone who gets a boost. In order to to provide an extra challenge and keep the game interesting now that the player is more powerful from the beginning NG+ often sees enemies and encounters scaled up to the players level, such as in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and the Borderlands series.

Some New Game Plus modes are more liberal than others. Mass Effect: Andromeda not only retains nearly all of the players assets – from items and skill points to vehicle skins – but also opens the character creator to allow for a complete redesign, including gender. Dragon Age: Inquisition – Mass Effect's high fantasy cousin – was the first game in the Dragon Age series to feature NG+ of any kind and is far more restricted, retaining only crafting schematics from previous playthroughs.This is more useful than it seems at first glance, since high tiered weapons, armor and consumables can be created from the beginning of the game, and items from previous characters can be effectively recreated as soon as the necessary materials are acquired. 

Some games such as Astro Boy: Omega Factor, Oxenfree and Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem integrate NG+ into the story by incorporating time travel or making certain endings or epilogues attainable only by completing the game more than once.

Thanks for reading Words to Know. This entry was inspired by Oxenfree, which includes an interesting New Game Plus mode and which is currently free on Xbox One for the rest of the month for Xbox Live Gold subscribers. You can expect a 'What am I Playing' on it it the not-too-distant future.