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Tw3 New Game + promo

New Game + (stylized as NEW GAME +) is an unlockable game mode for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. It is one of the 16 free DLCs available for the game, released on August 17, 2015 [1]. It allows players to restart the game and retain all their gold, abilities and most of their gear, including items stored in your stash. However, you will LOSE all of the following (regardless of where they're stored):

  • Quest items, except for some rather minor ones that you might as well sell when you get the chance.
  • books, both physical copies and their entries in your journal
  • Gwent cards, except for the basic starting Northern Realms deck
  • crafting diagrams, including all witcher school gear diagrams
  • A number of alchemy formulas, however quite a few will remain for potions, bombs and ingredients.
  • Trophies, both ones worn on Roach for status effects and any you may have won and displayed in your house in the Blood and Wine expansion at Corvo Bianco.
  • All map exploration, points of interest, etc.
  • Bestiary entries
  • Character entries

Any retained items will not be available during the tutorial sections.

Suggested difficulty levels for quests are scaled up by at least 25 levels, as are the levels of the monsters encountered. It is in fact a live-scaling; whatever level you were at when you completed the game and created a save file to start New Game +, the monster and quest levels will be scaled accordingly. For example, with a first time playthrough where both the Hearts of Stone expansion and Blood and Wine expansions were played, the character was at level 53 at the game's end, which caused the lowest level monsters in New Game + to be level 50.

The levels of dropped equipment and items made through crafting are also shifted upwards. With witcher school gear, this is reflected by a name change to "Legendary". For example, "Feline armor" now becomes "Legendary Feline armor" with correspondingly higher stats in terms of Armor value, but lower stats in terms of Resistances. This means that Grandmaster witcher sets in your first playthrough will stay relevant much longer than you think, because incoming damage is reduced more by Resistances than it is by Armor. Though when you reach the appropriate level, you will still replace your Grandmaster witcher items with their corresponding Legendary Grandmaster counterparts. A similar story applies to the Undvik trousers or the Nilfgaardian guardsman's gauntlets with excellent Resistances or damage bonus, respectively.

Prior to Patch 4.0, there was only one level-scaling item in the game, Aerondight, which only comes with the Blood and Wine expansion. Make sure you have added upgrade slots and enchanted it as you see fit before you start New Game +, as the Runewright will be, at minimum, 30 levels higher and therefore impossible to help right away.
For steel swords, without the next-gen patch, you will at some point need to upgrade to a higher level sword. While you will lose the enchantment of the Runewright, you can compensate this with regular Greater Runes saved in your stash. Since Patch 4.0 though, both Winter's Blade and Blade from the Bits upgrade with your level, so either of them is a solid option to keep.

Tips[]

  • Apart from the exceptions mentioned above for quest gear, all gear in your stash is transferred. However, any gear put on display in your vineyard outside the stash will *not* be transferred over.
  • There is an unfixed bug that can cause mutagen multiples to be deleted during the transfer. To be precise, any stack of mutagens in the inventory and the stash is likely to be reduced to 1. Slotted mutagens are not affected by this bug. It is therefore advised to:
    1. Make a distinct game save.
    2. Start the New Game +, and as soon as you can, check your inventory to see whether you are affected by the bug. If you are not, nothing more to do, if you are, continue at the next step.
    3. Reload your previous save game.
    4. Split any mutagen stacks in your inventory to be both in your stash and standard inventory - that way you retain 2 copies of each.
    5. Consider to complete all or all but 4 mutations (completing 4 mutations costs 9+ ability points and grants 2 extra ability slots, completing 8 costs 25+ ability points and grants 3 extra ability slots, completing all costs 49 ability points). Note that this takes a very heavy toll on the amount of available ability points, so completing them all is only advised if NG+ is started at a really high level or when you think you have a powerful enough build to let go of 49 ability points. Completing 8 of 12 mutations only keeps one slot locked, but leaves you with up to 24 extra ability points.
    6. Since red mutagens are much harder to acquire than blue/green mutagens, consider placing greater red mutagens in the 4 slots regardless of skill synergy, since these slots will not suffer from the bug and their mutagens are transferred properly.
  • If you want any runewords or glyphwords in your equipment, visit the runewright before you start an NG+, as he will only be unlocked much later.
  • Dismantle unused monster mutagens before starting a new game + because you cannot dismantle mutagens for a long time after starting a new game +.

Official Statement[]

Hungry for more action? Start a new game with all the skills and items from your previous playthrough, get better loot, slay even more ferocious beasts and relive the epic fantasy adventure that is The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt!

Journal entry[]

You can start NEW GAME + from the Main Menu after finishing the main storyline. If you finished the main storyline before installing this content, you need to load a save made after completing the game and resave it for it to be eligible for use with NEW GAME +.

Notes[]

  • If a New Game+ was started from a save where Geralt was (at least) multiple levels over 50, this will naturally cause some high-level items to reach a level 100 requirement - the maximum allowed by the game. However, any damage or armor values are not actually capped and will continue to be scaled upwards until their theoretical limit above level 100.

Bugs[]

  • At least as of Patch 4.04, some crafted Relic items have their level automatically upgraded to (starting level + base craft level) at the start of a New Game +, resulting in them being unequipable. This was discovered with crafted versions of Nilfgaardian guardsman's gauntlets and Alder Folk boots, but the scope is yet unclear - Sarrim is fine, for example, and so is all Witcher gear, but the bug might affect other item tiers or even non-crafted uniques with fixed levels.
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