I wrapped up my first playthrough of Ghost of Yotei on normal difficulty three weeks ago, and I thought I’d seen every corner of the mountain and mastered every combat mechanic. I jumped straight into Ghost of Yotei NG+ 10 minutes after the final credits rolled, and got one-shot by a random bandit with a wooden club before I even made it to the first story checkpoint. It turns out NG+ isn’t just a lazy replay with tankier enemies — it’s a fully rebalanced experience with exclusive story content, rare gear, and combat twists that even veteran players will struggle with at first. This guide pulls from my 18 hours of NG+ playtime to help you avoid the mistakes I made, and get the most out of your second run.
What Makes Ghost of Yotei NG+ Different From Your First Playthrough?
The first thing you’ll notice when you load into NG+ is that every enemy on the map is 30 levels higher than the max level cap from your first playthrough. Base NG+ enemies have 2.5x higher health and 1.8x more damage output than normal mode endgame enemies, and most of them have new attack patterns you won’t have seen before. Spear wielders now have an unblockable sweep attack, heavy samurai can parry your light attacks, and common bandits will throw smoke bombs to escape if you take out half their group in under a minute.
You’ll carry over all your unlocked skills, most of your gear, and your full inventory of consumables, but story-specific key items like the village protection amulet don’t carry over — you’ll have to collect those again as you work through the main quest. There are also three entirely new side quests, five hidden shrines, and 12 exclusive gear pieces that you can’t access in any other game mode, so even if you 100% your first playthrough, you’ll have plenty of new content to explore.
You don’t lose access to any of the open world activities from your first run either. All the bandit camps, fox dens, and bamboo cutting challenges respawn, and you’ll get double the XP and gold for completing them in NG+, so it’s easy to level up your gear even faster than you did the first time around.
Essential Prep Steps Before You Start Your NG+ Run
Don’t make the same mistake I did by jumping straight into NG+ right after you beat the final boss. Take 20 minutes to wrap up a few small tasks first, and you’ll save yourself hours of frustration later. These are the only prep steps you need to worry about:
- Max out your parry and counterattack skill tree first: 90% of NG+ encounters require perfect parries to avoid one-shot damage, so you don’t want to waste skill points unlocking non-essential skills halfway through your run
- Collect all 12 hidden jade amulets from your first playthrough: These carry over and give a 30% damage resistance boost that only applies in NG+ mode, and you can’t go back for them once you start your new run
- Sell all common crafting materials you have stockpiled: You’ll get a 2x gold multiplier for all items sold before starting NG+, and you’ll find far higher tier materials within the first hour of your new run anyway
- Save at least 3 empty gear slots for exclusive NG+ rewards you’ll get within the first two main story missions
I skipped the step of selling my common materials before starting my run, and I lost out on almost 15,000 gold that would have let me buy the exclusive NG+ blacksmith upgrade right at the start of the game. If you already started NG+ and didn’t do these prep steps, don’t panic — you can load your pre-ending save file at any time to wrap up these tasks, and you won’t lose any of your progress from your first playthrough.
Combat Tips to Dominate NG+ Encounters
The core combat loop is the same as your first playthrough, but the balance changes mean a lot of the tactics you relied on before won’t work anymore. Stealth is still a valid way to clear camps, but enemies have a 40% wider detection range, so you can’t just crouch walk behind a group of guards and take them out one by one anymore. You’ll need to use firecrackers, wind chimes, or your spirit fox companion to draw individual enemies away from groups before you take them out, or you’ll get spotted almost immediately.
Always prioritize taking out elite archers first in any group encounter. Their arrows deal poison damage that drains 5% of your health per second for 10 seconds, and there’s no way to cure it early unless you have the rare moss poultice you can only buy from hidden mountain village merchants. If you get hit by one of these arrows mid-fight, you’ll have to burn through all your healing items just to stay alive, so taking archers out first removes the biggest threat in most encounters.
Don’t waste your spirit bar on large area of effect attacks anymore. Most elite enemies in NG+ have resistance to these attacks, so you’ll get far more value saving your spirit bar for perfect parry counters, which deal 3x more damage than they did in your first playthrough. I used to waste my entire spirit bar on AOE attacks at the start of every fight, and I switched to only using it for counters once I realized how much more damage I was dealing per bar.
Exclusive Ghost of Yotei NG+ Rewards You Don’t Want to Miss
The extra challenge is fun, but the real draw of NG+ is the exclusive content you can’t get anywhere else. The three new side quests tie up loose ends from the main story, including what happened to the blacksmith’s missing family, and the secret history of the corrupted spirits that haunt Yotei mountain. The writing for these quests is just as strong as the main story, and they add a lot of context to small details you might have missed during your first playthrough.
Completing all three new side quests unlocks the Forgotten Katana of the Mountain God, which is easily the best weapon in the game. It deals 50% extra damage to all corrupted enemies, and has a unique parry effect that sends a shockwave back at attackers that stuns them for three seconds. I’ve used this katana for every fight since I unlocked it, and it makes even the hardest NG+ boss fights feel manageable.
There are also five hidden shrines scattered across the map that only appear in NG+. Each shrine requires you to solve a small environmental puzzle to access it, and each one gives you a permanent stat boost, like 10% extra stamina, 15% faster healing, or 20% extra gold from all activities. If you find all five shrines and 100% complete all NG+ content, you’ll unlock the black and gold spirit fox skin, which makes your companion undetectable by enemies, so they won’t get spooked and run off when you’re scouting camps. It’s the only cosmetic in the game with a gameplay benefit, and it’s 100% worth the 10 or so hours it takes to hunt down all the shrines.
At the end of the day, Ghost of Yotei NG+ isn’t just a way to replay a game you love. It’s a whole new challenge that rewards you for the skills you built during your first playthrough, and it adds so much extra content that it feels almost like a small expansion pack. Don’t get discouraged if you die a lot in the first few hours — even players who mastered the hardest difficulty on their first run take a while to get used to the new enemy patterns and balance changes. Take your time exploring, don’t rush through the main story, and you’ll probably find that NG+ is the most fun way to play Ghost of Yotei, especially if you’re looking for a real challenge that puts your skills to the test.