Summary
WhileStarfieldcan be enjoyed without New Game+, one player’s experience shows how weird things can get after entering Unity for the tenth time on the same character. The latest Bethesda title offers the sandbox gameplay that its fans have come to love, yet it also adds a twist to the formula by not only adding New Game+, but also seamlessly weaving it into the narrative.New Game+ inStarfieldhas the player enter Unity, effectively becoming reborn in a new universe, and allowing them to experience the same story all over again – except with all the foreknowledge they gathered in their original playthrough.
Though Bethesda created some quirky changes to the main Constellation story to keep things fresh, the true gameplay benefit of starting New Game+ is to rank up one’sStarborn powers inStarfield. Every temple visit in New Game+ that’s tied to a power already known to the player results in a level up to its next rank. Thus, to maximize one’s combat abilities, characters not only need to enter Unity ten times, but also complete a grand total of 240 temples to achieve the maximum rank in all Starborn powers.
Unfortunately, the experience of NG+ 10 cannot be described as stable at the moment, as many players are running into strange bugs with a fully-upgraded Phased Time power. Most recently, aStarfieldplayer named MclovinTHCa got stuck with an endless Phased Time duration, which slowed down their gameplay by a significant amount, on top of their character suffering from the permanent invisibility glitch. There is currently no reliable solution to fix the bug that leavesStarfieldplayers headless, but some PC fans have reported mixed success in using the console to forcibly remove the Concealment perk.
MclovinTHCa had to rewind 20 hours into their playthrough to find a save without the Phased Time bug, which seems to occur for players who have entered NG+ 10. They made an indirect suggestion to the community to stay in NG+ 9 until Bethesda hopefully fixes the issue in thenextStarfieldupdate. While some players have been able to break out of the Phased Time bug by restarting their game, it hasn’t been a one-size-fits-all solution.
WithStarfield’s official modding tools launchingin early 2024, it can also be expected that an unofficial community patch will tackle these issues instead. However, until a concrete fix emerges from Bethesda or the modding community, players will have to tread carefully as they enter the higher levels of New Game+ inStarfield.
