Assassin’s Creed Valhalla New Game Plus Is Live, Four Years After Ubisoft Said No
Update 1.8.0 landed today. It is free, it is the mode players have asked for since 2020, and Ubisoft has called it the most requested update the game has had. It also directly contradicts the studio’s own position. In November 2022, Ubisoft said Valhalla would not be getting New Game Plus, and gave a specific reason: the game was simply too sprawling and too intricate to build a replay experience players would find rewarding. That was presented as a design judgement rather than a scheduling problem.
Six years after launch and roughly three years after the previous final update, that judgement has been reversed.
Which makes this a more interesting patch than a feature addition. Ubisoft named a precise obstacle in 2022, and 1.8.0 is a set of engineering answers to that exact obstacle. So this walks the objection and the answers, item by item, then the practical details – how to start it, what carries, and what the patch notes still have not said.
The Objection, and the Five Things Built to Answer It
The 2022 argument, restated plainly: Valhalla is enormous, its progression is spread across levels, skills, gear, runes and settlement upgrades, and simply letting you start again with your stuff would produce a replay that felt either trivially easy or pointlessly repetitive.
That is a real problem, and it is worth noticing that 1.8.0 does not solve it by ignoring it.
| The 2022 Problem | The 1.8.0 Answer |
|---|---|
| Returning players would steamroll the early game | Dedicated New Game Plus scaling, with each cycle getting harder |
| Re-earning the same gear is tedious | Mithril – duplicates convert into a resource instead |
| Progression is spread too thin to carry over cleanly | An optional progression mode where Gear, Runes and Masteries all feed Eivor’s overall Power |
| There is nothing new to chase | New runes, new achievements, Divine Gear quality on every item, and a Master Assassin outfit |
| Nowhere to put a second run’s worth of loot | A new Stash system |
The Mithril entry is the one that counts, and it is covered properly below. But note the general shape: rather than bolting a difficulty toggle onto a replay, Ubisoft rebuilt the reward economy so that a second run produces different things than the first.
How to Start Assassin’s Creed Valhalla New Game Plus
The requirement is unusual, and it is the single most practical thing to know. You need to have completed the Holy Day Quest in the Hamtunscire region.
Not the final mission. Not the true ending. Ubisoft placed the entry point before the game’s real conclusion, and said so explicitly, with the reasoning that Valhalla is so large that gating New Game Plus behind full completion would put it out of reach for most players.
That is a sensible call and a slightly unusual one. Most New Game Plus modes are a reward for finishing. This one is a reward for getting far enough in, which in a game of Valhalla’s length is a meaningfully different bar.
Two consequences worth thinking about:
- If you abandoned Valhalla somewhere in England years ago, you may be closer to New Game Plus than you assume. Hamtunscire is late but not final.
- If you are mid-playthrough right now, the Holy Day Quest is a target worth steering toward rather than something to stumble into.
What Carries Over
Equipment is the headline carryover. You keep your gear, which Ubisoft has framed around a specific player behaviour: being able to hold onto a favourite weapon and keep upgrading it rather than abandoning it the moment something with better numbers drops.
Anyone who has played a Ubisoft open world will recognise the frustration being addressed. Valhalla’s loot curve constantly obsoletes things you liked, and a mode that lets a weapon you are attached to stay viable across a second run is answering a complaint older than the game.
Difficulty scales to match. There is dedicated New Game Plus scaling so that an experienced player arriving with a full kit does not flatten Norway and the opening stretch of England. And each New Game Plus cycle gets harder than the last, which means this is a ladder rather than a single extra lap.
What the available documentation does not clearly state is the full reset list – which progression elements start over and which persist beyond equipment. Ubisoft promised fuller patch notes, and that gap is covered in its own section below.
Mithril, and the Duplicate Problem
This is the smartest thing in the update and the most direct answer to the 2022 objection.
Mithril is a new resource, and you receive it in place of duplicate rewards. If you pick up gear you already own during a New Game Plus run, or read a Book of Knowledge you have already read, you get Mithril instead of a redundant item.
Think about what that fixes. The single worst thing about replaying a hundred-hour game with your inventory intact is that the world is still full of rewards you no longer need. Every chest becomes a disappointment. Every ability book becomes a shrug. The game keeps offering you things you already have, which is exactly the “pointlessly repetitive” outcome Ubisoft worried about in 2022.
Converting all of that into a currency means the second run’s loot is not worthless, it is differently valuable. Mithril goes toward strengthening runes and upgrading Divine Gear, so chests you have opened before are now feeding a progression track that did not exist on your first run.
That is a genuinely good piece of design, and it is the thing that most justifies the four-year reversal.
Divine Gear and the Power Rework
Two changes to how strength works, both optional in character. Divine Gear quality is now available on all items. Previously a limited tier, it now applies across the board, and Mithril is how you upgrade into it.
An optional progression mode makes Gear, Runes and Masteries all contribute to Eivor’s overall Power. Which shifts the balance away from XP and Skill Points as the primary drivers of how strong you are.
That second one is quietly significant for a replay specifically. On a first playthrough, Valhalla’s power curve is largely a function of hours spent – you level, you earn skill points, you fill the tree. On a New Game Plus run, hours spent is exactly what you do not want to be the deciding factor, because you have already spent them. Making gear, runes and masteries carry the weight gives a returning player something to optimise rather than something to grind back.
The Stash, the Rune Forge and the Rest of 1.8.0
Everything else in the patch, as documented so far:
- A new Stash system, for storing the second run’s accumulating gear. Details remain thin.
- Rune Forge updates, alongside new runes to find.
- New achievements, which is good news for anyone who completed the original list.
- PSSR 2 support, improving the upscaling algorithm on supported PlayStation hardware.
- Extra upgrades beyond the Divine Gear tier.
- Naoe’s Master Assassin outfit, inspired by her look in Assassin’s Creed Shadows – a neat bit of cross-promotion that also gives Eivor the most un-Viking cosmetic in the game.
The Shadows outfit is the kind of thing that sounds like filler and is actually the most visible reward in the package. A free legendary-looking cosmetic drawn from a newer entry is a better hook for a returning player than another rune.
What Assassin’s Creed Valhalla New Game Plus Does Not Tell You Yet
An honesty section, because this patch is hours old and the documentation is incomplete.
The full reset list is not clearly published. Equipment carries over. Beyond that, what persists and what starts fresh – settlement upgrades, skill trees, map discovery, quest completion, ability books – is not comprehensively documented in the material available today. Ubisoft said full details would follow in the patch notes.
The platform list is unclear. PSSR 2 support is confirmed, which implies PlayStation 5 and PS5 Pro, but Ubisoft’s own announcement said news on current-generation console updates was coming “in the coming days” rather than listing platforms outright.
The Stash is barely described. It exists. How much it holds and where it lives are open questions.
Mithril’s full economy is undocumented. We know it replaces duplicates and feeds runes and Divine Gear. Conversion rates and acquisition ceilings are not public.
So if you are planning a run tonight, the sensible move is to read the in-game patch notes rather than any single article, this one included. Several of the figures circulating today come from secondary coverage of Ubisoft’s announcement rather than from a published patch document.
Why Has the Update Been Released Now?
| Elsewhere in the Fall 2026 Update | Status |
|---|---|
| Black Flag Resynced | Final major update, also adding New Game Plus, a Nightmare Mode, new finishers, trinkets and customisation, with Blackbeard’s outfit among community rewards. Major content plans end here |
| Codename Hexe | Next major update planned for 2027 |
| Other remakes | None currently in development, though Ubisoft describes the door as open |
| Netflix live-action series | Production in Rome nearing completion, composer Hannah Peel attached, no release date |
| 20th anniversary | Celebrations begin in 2027 |
| Leadership | A new Assassin’s Creed Leadership Team led by Martin Schelling now shaping long-term direction |
Read that list and a pattern appears. Two older games getting New Game Plus in the same announcement, remakes paused, a new leadership team in place, and a 20th anniversary year ahead. This is a franchise tidying up its back catalogue before a milestone, and Valhalla’s most requested feature was an obvious item on that list.
It also suggests the 2022 refusal was less a permanent technical verdict than a statement about priorities at the time.
Is It Worth Replaying a Hundred Hours?
The honest answer depends entirely on which complaint you had about Valhalla.
If your complaint was length, nothing here helps. New Game Plus does not shorten anything. It is the same enormous England, the same river raids, the same settlement. A mode that makes a 100-hour game replayable is of limited appeal to someone who found 100 hours to be the problem.
If your complaint was the loot curve, this is aimed squarely at you. Keeping a favourite weapon viable, converting duplicates into Mithril, Divine Gear on everything and a power system weighted toward equipment rather than XP all address the same frustration from different angles.
If you never finished it, the Hamtunscire requirement is the thing to know. You may be able to reach New Game Plus without completing the game at all, which is an odd and quite generous arrangement.
And if you finished it and moved on four years ago, the real draw is probably the new achievements and the Shadows outfit rather than the mode itself. Which is fine. Free is free.
FAQ
Does Assassin’s Creed Valhalla have New Game Plus?
Yes, as of today. Update 1.8.0 added it free of charge, nearly six years after the game’s launch and about four years after Ubisoft said the mode would not be added.
How do you start New Game Plus in Valhalla?
Complete the Holy Day Quest in the Hamtunscire region. Ubisoft deliberately placed the requirement before the game’s true ending, reasoning that Valhalla is large enough that full completion would be too high a bar.
What carries over into New Game Plus?
Equipment is the main carryover, so you can keep and continue upgrading a favourite weapon. The complete reset list has not been fully documented, with Ubisoft promising further patch notes.
What is Mithril?
A new resource awarded in place of duplicates. Pick up gear you already own or read a Book of Knowledge you have already read, and you get Mithril instead, which strengthens runes and upgrades Divine Gear.
Does it get harder?
Yes. There is dedicated New Game Plus scaling so experienced players are not trivially overpowered early, and each successive cycle gets harder than the last.
What else is in Update 1.8.0?
New runes and achievements, a Stash system, Rune Forge updates, Divine Gear quality on all items, PSSR 2 support, and a Master Assassin outfit inspired by Naoe from Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
Why did Ubisoft change its mind?
It has not said directly. The reversal arrived inside a broader Fall 2026 franchise update that also gave Black Flag Resynced its final major patch, paused other remakes, and installed a new leadership team ahead of the series’ 20th anniversary in 2027.
A Reversal Worth Having
Ubisoft’s 2022 position was not that New Game Plus was too much work. It was that Valhalla’s scale and its sprawling progression made a satisfying replay genuinely hard to build – and that was a defensible thing to say about a game where a second run would mean a hundred hours of opening chests containing items you already owned.
Mithril is the rebuttal. A system that turns every redundant reward into a currency feeding a track you did not have on your first run is a direct, specific fix for the exact problem the studio named. Same with the power rework, which moves strength away from hours spent at precisely the moment hours spent stops being a meaningful measure.
Whether that adds up to a reason to spend another hundred hours in England is a personal question, and for most people the honest answer is probably no. But the mode exists, it is free, it arrived with new achievements and an outfit borrowed from Shadows, and it is reachable without finishing the game.
Four years late and built properly. Worse things have happened to a patch.
Reinstalling tonight? Share this, bookmark it, and go find out how much Mithril a hundred duplicate chests are worth – and if creative or commercial collaboration brought you here, the T-Minus team is one message away.
