New Game Plus (NG+): What Carries Over and What to Know

Category: Advanced | SAO Hollow Realization Guide

Everything about New Game Plus in SAO: Hollow Realization. What carries over, what resets, how to start NG+, and tips for your second playthrough.

Starting New Game Plus After completing the main story of Hollow Realization, you unlock New Game Plus (NG+), which lets you replay the entire story from the beginning while retaining much of your hard-earned progression. NG+ is perfect for players who want to experience the story again with a stronger character, try different weapons and builds without the early-game grind, or pursue content they missed on their first run. Starting NG+ is straightforward from the post-game menu, but there are important details about what carries over and what resets that you should know before committing.

What Carries Over to NG+ The following elements of your progression are retained when you start NG+: • Your character's level and stats -- You do NOT reset to level 1. You keep all your earned levels and stat allocations. • Skill Points and unlocked skills -- All SP you spent on skill trees remains unlocked. This means you start NG+ with access to late-game skills immediately, making early-game combat trivial in the best way. • Weapon proficiency -- All weapon proficiency levels carry over. If you unlocked Dual Blades on your first playthrough, you have them from the start of NG+. • Equipment and inventory -- Your weapons, armor, accessories, and most items carry over. Yes, this means you can bring your endgame weapon into the starting fields. • Col (currency) -- You keep all your money. • Materials and crafting components -- All your gathered materials stay with you. • Unlocked teleport stones (check specifics in-game, but generally fast travel network availability depends on story progression) -- Some teleport stones may re-lock with story progression.

What Resets in NG+ Some things do reset to provide story structure and progression: • Main story progress -- Obviously, the story starts over from the beginning. You experience the opening sequences and Premiere's introduction again. • Quest progress -- Main story quests reset. Side quest availability may depend on story progress, similar to your first playthrough. • Party member availability -- NPCs join your party at the same story points they did originally. You start alone and recruit Asuna and others as the story progresses. • NPC affinity (may partially reset or carry over -- verify in-game) -- Affinity progression typically needs to be rebuilt for story characters as they rejoin your party. • Certain story-locked areas -- Regions that were locked behind story progression become locked again until you reach the corresponding point in the NG+ story.

NG+ Tips and Recommendations • Try a different weapon -- Since you keep your level and have plenty of SP, NG+ is the perfect time to invest in a weapon type you did not use on your first playthrough. Start leveling a new weapon tree while steamrolling early content with your existing stats. • Pursue missed content -- Use your overpowered status in NG+ to thoroughly explore early areas and find chests or secrets you missed when you were underleveled. • Experiment with different party compositions -- Bring characters you rarely used on your first run. With your endgame power carrying damage, you can afford to play with suboptimal party members for fun. • Make different dialogue choices -- If you are curious about different affinity outcomes or character moments, choose different dialogue options in NG+. • Grind for perfect gear before NG+ if you want to maximize dominance -- If you fully max out your weapon and armor in post-game before starting NG+, you can absolutely demolish everything until late-game. It is silly and entertaining.