Starfield New Game Plus Explained and Why It's Its Most Intriguing Concept (Spoilers)

foreign [Music] something familiar about you I've already hit starfield's credit screen four times not because I can't get enough of playing bethesda's latest Grand scale RPG but because I find the concept that powers its new game plus mode to be completely intriguing not to sound too much like Matthew McConaughey and Interstellar but where I once thought I'd be losing dozens of hours exploring places in the Galaxy it's actually what takes place in one room that has captured my imagination most [Music] I should probably first explain what exactly happens at the end of starfield's story and the beginning of a new game plus run in the final moments of the main questline you become a starborn a sort of Guardian of the Galaxy whose job is to collect artifacts piece them together and enter the unity they form on repeat Until the End of Time entering the unity doesn't just trigger a new game plus run though each time you step through it you awaken in a parallel universe where no one knows who you are and almost everything is taken away from you all you retain from your previous Universe are your skill points as well as gaining fancy starborn armor and a Sleek star-borne ship you're ushered back down to new Atlantis where your story once again begins at constellations Lodge this is where the fun begins upon entering its mahogany furnace surroundings you're met with a choice reveal your starborn identity to Sarah and her band of Merry explorers or keep it a secret to play the full main quest lighting again picking the former is what I've done each time and while they are perhaps overly accepting of this truth you're taking the their word for it Sarah points you in the direction of Vladimir and the location of six more artifacts to collect honestly it makes my hair stand on end like we're cheating time somehow it's a cool concept one that means your story in this galaxy keeps getting written until you decide when your final Loop will be but it also suffers from some of the cracks that can be found in many other areas of Starfield too there's very little to differentiate these alternate universes from one another aside from one thing we'll get on to later and I can't help but feel more attention could have gone into making each feel unique perhaps a color swap on some uniforms or buildings a different haircut for Sarah a fresh paint job for Vasco just something to make it feel like you're actively visiting somewhere new this repetition also stretches to the mission itself on all three of my new game plus runs so far the artifacts have been on the exact same planets in the exact same cabins and abandoned facilities there's been no variety whatsoever in these locations or how the enemies have been spaced out with in them it seems then that the variations between parallel universes are limited just to the constellation headquarters on one hand this has made it incredibly easy for me to quickly speed through a run but on the other I can't say it's been too exciting to play it's been a little bit of a slog and an experience that Echoes much of how I feel about starfield's main quest which buries its magic in piles of gray Moon dust that you have to sift through to find I couldn't help but wish that the amount of care and attention placed in the Fidelity of its potatoes and their physics systems had been put into making more of its quests and its parallel universe hops engaging you might at this point be asking why are you doing this then well I'd heard rumors rumors of weird and wonderful things that await once you pass through the unity a certain number of times and when starting my fifth playthrough I saw exactly this when swinging open the doors of constellation in this new universe I wasn't greeted by the typical members of constellation instead my former companion andreja met me with a group of house Varun soldiers she wasn't happy to see me stating constellation has brought down the rat of the Great Serpent and I am his instrument and so I gunned down the woman I had fallen in love with and married four universes previously I didn't want to live here so it made me instantly want to go through the unity again to leave this dark reality behind and that's when it hit me starfield's new game plus is more interested in telling a story than it is in providing new gameplay experiences this andrasia had no idea who I was and left no time for finding out but I still had all of those memories and so did starborn Simon not joking then no foreign story continues while everything around you starts again is as clever away as I can remember abridging the disconnect between player and Avatar in a new game plus it's nowhere near the storytelling feat of something like near automata for example but does offer a reason to keep playing just for that thrill that you might just see something that no one else has there's no guarantee that you will however and it does seem like we're firmly in the palms of the RNG Gods when it comes to what Waits For Us in constellation each time I've heard stories of people being met by an unscrupulous water Stroud demanding money or death for the location of the remaining artifacts another was threatened by a grown-up koroko looking for vengeance for her father's death a particularly odd one CG greeted by several copies of yourself and of course you might just get the standard introduction the most underwhelming of all there's just no knowing much like many of its quests whether Starfield will throw something exciting or mundane your way Starfield is undoubtedly a game that shows its best parts to you the more time you put into it and its new game plus mechanic is no different it doesn't change the way you'll play it in any major way but may just hit you with a nugget of story that makes you feel something so many of its lifeless planets fail to do the way it evokes the current culture's obsession with multiverses but manages to implement its ideas in a new way and something I've genuinely never seen in a game before it gets the synapses sparking as you think of the possibilities on offer and a reason to make that Journey again with each Loop taking around 90 minutes to complete if you just focus on the artifacts it can be short by regular New Game Plus standards but it's still a notable time investment to risk seeing a parallel world identical to the one you just left if you're lucky though sometimes the planets align to make it all seem worth it again another penitent to be made to dust for more from Starfield check out our review and for everything else on the game stick with IGN

Channel: IGN

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Keywords: RPG, Starfield, Game Pass, Starfield NG+, Starfield New Game Plus, Starfield New Game Plus Explained, Starfield Ending, Starfield Spoilers, Gaming, IGN, Games, Starfield 2023, Starfield Story, Starfield NG+ Explained, Starfield New Game Plus Differences, Starfield End, Starfield Endgame, Starfield Reaction, New Game Plus, New Game Plus Starfield, NG+, NG+ Starfield, Starfield Story Explained, Bethesda, Starfield Opinion, Starfield Review, Game Pass Games, Xbox Games, PC Games

Id: UIkW1Bu8M9o

Length: 6min 20sec (380 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 08 2023