Assassin's Creed Valhalla Gets New Game+ in a Free Update: How to Unlock It and What's New

Assassin's Creed Valhalla has New Game+ at last. Ubisoft's free "The Most Requested Update", title update 1.8.0, went live on 5 November on PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One, six years after the game came out. Alongside New Game+, which Ubisoft admits players have asked for "for ages", it raises the gear upgrade cap, adds a stash and more than 300 new engravable runes, and brings PSSR 2 upscaling to the PS5 Pro.

How to unlock New Game+

Finish the Holy Day quest, the last quest of the Hamtunscire region. Ubisoft notes that this comes before the game's true ending, but "since it is a very big game" it lets you start New Game+ a little earlier. Each New Game+ run gets progressively harder.

In New Game+, any gear or book of knowledge you already own gives you Mithril instead, a new resource. You can also get Mithril from the Niflheim, Mastery and River Raid shops. Carbon, Nickel and Tungsten from Wealth Chests turn into Platinum, an ingot that used to be exclusive to the Dawn of Ragnarok expansion, so you no longer need that DLC to upgrade gear to Divine quality.

Everything else the update adds

Higher gear cap: Divine gear now upgrades to level 27, up from 13. Each upgrade costs Mithril.
Extended Progression Mode: an optional mode where gear upgrades and runes each add 1 Power, and masteries add Power every 5 skill points. Ubisoft says it makes your gear count for more, with a harder challenge.
Stash: a new chest in Ravensthorpe where you can store any gear or rune from your inventory.
Rune Forge upgrades: a new tab lets you upgrade runes with silver, from lesser to normal to greater, and then to a new Superior tier that costs Mithril.
More than 300 new engravable runes: every perk added since launch, including those from the DLCs and the Helix Store, can now be engraved into a rune for 450 silver, as long as you own the weapon or the full armour set.
Naoe outfit: a new Master Assassin outfit based on Naoe from Assassin's Creed Shadows.
Two new achievements and trophies: Ivaldi's Heir for fully upgrading a piece of Divine gear, and Circle of Renewal for finishing a New Game+ run.
Balance changes: tweaks to dual wielding, stat runes and skill masteries. The Raven, Bear and Wolf masteries now all add health, and most weapon types get adjusted damage.

Lead game designer David Larouche told Xbox Wire that the extended progression mode, the higher Divine upgrades, the new rune tier and the extra perks are "available without New Game+ as well".

PSSR 2 on PS5 Pro

On PS5 Pro, the update adds the upgraded version of Sony's PSSR upscaler, PSSR 2, in place of the game's own temporal upscaler. Priscilla Nguyen, engineering studio manager at Ubisoft, told the PlayStation Blog that it delivers "a noticeably sharper and more visually refined image quality in 4K and smoothness with 60FPS", and that the team used it to run the Quality mode at 60fps on PS5 Pro. Ubisoft already uses the upgraded PSSR in Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced and Assassin's Creed Shadows.