New Game Plus Checklist: 12 Things to Do Before You Reset Your Action RPG

The last boss is down, the credits have rolled, and the New Game Plus prompt is blinking at you from the corner of the screen. Very tempting. Also a trap. A new cycle takes more than your sense of achievement: quest progress, key items, merchant stock and a fair few fast-travel points all get wiped. Ten minutes of tidying now saves an entire second playthrough of regret. Work through this before you confirm that reset.

Spend Currency Like It Expires, Because It Does

In most action RPGs, carried-over currency is either lost outright or handed back at a painful exchange rate. Before anything else, find the nearest checkpoint or hub and turn your stockpile into something permanent.

• Levels first. If you are close to a stat threshold — a weapon requirement, a carry weight breakpoint, a spell you could finally cast — bank those levels now.
• Trade boss souls, do not eat them. Remembrances and boss souls usually buy unique weapons, spells or talismans. Consuming them for experience is a wasted cycle unless you already own every reward they offer.
• Use limited consumables. Respec items, stat-boosting foods, one-off upgrade materials. If they are still sitting untouched at the end of a run, you are hoarding rather than preparing.

Respec Before You Reset

If the game allows a build change, do it before the reset rather than halfway through the next cycle. Test the new stat spread on enemies you already know well, where a mistake costs you a few seconds instead of a boss attempt. If it feels wrong, change back while the resources are still in your stash.

Finish the Quests That Break Quietly

NPC storylines are the number one source of New Game Plus misery. Many are tied to specific bosses, areas or stage gates, and they fail without telling you. There is no warning; the character simply is not where they used to be.

• Hand in any quest items cluttering your inventory. If an NPC asked for something, give it to them before the reset.
• Check your journal for steps marked incomplete, and compare against a wiki only where you genuinely cannot work it out.
• Trigger the final conversations at your hub. Some rewards appear only after the last line of dialogue.

Write down what you finished. A note on your phone beats trying to remember whether you handed in the knight's letter six weeks ago.

Gear, Storage and Merchants

Upgrade materials are the most valuable thing a single cycle gives you, and they are usually finite. Spend them.

• Push your main weapon as far as it will go. A fully upgraded blade carried into a tougher cycle is worth more than three half-finished sidearms.
• Buy out limited stock. Merchants who sell finite upgrade stones, spells or armour sets should be emptied, even if you cannot use the items yet.
• Clear duplicates. Sell spare sets and junk weapons. Storage limits are real, and sorting a bloated inventory later is tedious.
• Keep one backup per damage type. New cycles often punish a single damage source, whether through elemental resistance or a boss that simply will not bleed.

Map, Bosses and Collectibles

Optional content in a first playthrough is often the best content in the game, and it is the first thing people skip when they are rushing the finale.

Hunt down the bosses you dodged, the dungeons you left half-explored and the permanent upgrades — flask charges, health fragments, crafting recipes. Activate every fast-travel point you pass; rediscovering them in a harder cycle is pure busywork. Chests you opened may stay open, or may reset, so grab anything unique while you still know where it is.

Achievements and Trophies

If you care about a complete trophy list, check it before you reset rather than after. Some of the worst offenders are tied to a single playthrough, and a New Game Plus run will not count towards them.

• Missable ending achievements, especially those that hinge on a late-game choice.
• Difficulty trophies, which often require a fresh save rather than a carried-over one.
• Kill-every-boss and collect-every-item lists, far easier to finish while you still remember where things are.

Saves, Difficulty and What Actually Carries Over

Back up your save. Cloud storage, a USB stick, whatever your platform offers — make a copy before the reset, and again before any point-of-no-return moment. It takes two minutes and it has rescued countless runs.

Then check the rules for your specific game, because they vary wildly. Levels and gear usually carry; key items often do not. Enemy damage and health scale up, and some titles add new enemy placements, extra boss moves or items that only appear from the second cycle onwards. If your first run leaned heavily on a summon, a co-op partner or one unusually forgiving build, expect the next one to ask more of you.

The Twelve-Point Checklist

1. Spend all currency on levels or upgrades.
2. Trade boss souls for weapons and spells rather than experience.
3. Use respec items and one-off consumables.
4. Complete every NPC questline you can still finish.
5. Hand in outstanding quest items.
6. Fully upgrade your main weapon.
7. Buy out limited merchant stock.
8. Sell duplicates and tidy your storage.
9. Beat the optional bosses and clear missed dungeons.
10. Collect flask, health and crafting upgrades.
11. Check missable achievements against your trophy list.
12. Back up your save and confirm the carry-over rules.

None of this has to be perfect. If a quest is bugged, if you already sold the one item a merchant wanted, if you simply cannot face another optional boss tonight, start the new cycle anyway. The goal is not a spotless save file. It is walking into a harder run with your best gear, your levels banked and your regrets kept to a manageable number.

Photo: lukasbieri / Pixabay