# What You Lose and Keep When Restarting Elden Ring

- Canonical: https://33rdsquare.com/what-do-you-lose-when-you-restart-elden-ring-2/
- Published: 2023-10-31
- Author: Nelson Ayers
- Categories: [Business & Worth](https://33rdsquare.com/category/games/worth/)

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Restarting Elden Ring can be daunting if you‘re worried about losing all the hard work from your first playthrough. But you actually get to keep a lot more than you might think! In this detailed guide, I‘ll cover everything that resets when you start over, as well as what carries over to make subsequent journeys easier. Read on to learn if it‘s worth restarting and how to make the most of New Game Plus in Elden Ring.

## What is Lost When You Restart Elden Ring

The major things you‘ll lose that force you to re-experience content from scratch are:

- Discovered Sites of Grace – These fast travel points must all be found again, resetting exploration.
- Great Runes – The powerful buffs provided by these legendary Runes are lost and must be re-obtained.
- Keys and Key Items – Any items that allowed you to skip sections of the game will be reset. This includes things like lift medallions, sealed tunnel keys, etc.
- Opened Doors and shortcuts – Doors opened using Stonesword Keys will be closed again until reopened with Keys in the new playthrough. Shortcuts unlocked such as elevators or demolished walls will also be reset.

Losing access to Sites of Grace and fast travel is one of the biggest impacts when restarting Elden Ring. You‘ll have to rediscover each point by finding and activating it again before you can fast travel there. This restores the need to thoroughly explore each region from scratch.

Great Runes provide mighty boons like boosting attributes or providing health regen. To gain their benefits again, you‘ll have to defeat their respective shardbearer boss and use a Rune Arc to activate the Great Rune‘s power.

Keys and key items resetting means puzzles and shortcuts that allowed you to sequence break are once again locked behind their original progression. This ensures you experience the intended flow for quests and content.

Overall, the items lost when restarting Elden Ring are deliberately chosen so that you must properly replay the content in the order intended.

## What You Keep When Starting Over in Elden Ring

The good news is that your character themselves will stay at the same power level, keeping most of the progression and customization from the first playthrough, including:

- Character level
- All runes acquired
- Weapons, armor, seals, staves – Including upgrades and ascensions
- Spells and incantations learned
- Ash of War skills
- Talismans
- Crafting recipes

You‘ll also retain your map data, meaning any map fragments will stay revealed when restarting.

Keeping your levels, stats, gear, upgrades, and more allows you to continue tweaking and perfecting your build into NG+ and beyond. The increased difficulty will provide an appropriate challenge to your powered up hero.

Having all sites of lost grace revealed on your map lets you strategize routes and access areas you‘ve already explored much quicker.

According to data gathered by FromSoftware, the boss with the most attempted fights was Malenia at over 329 million tries. Keeping player power between playthroughs helps make these monumental challenges more manageable on return trips.

## Is Elden Ring Worth Playing Through Again?

For many players, the expansive Lands Between are worth revisiting time and again. Here are some of the biggest incentives for restarting your journey in Elden Ring:

- **Discover new quests and content** – Elden Ring is enormous and you‘ll inevitably miss things on your first playthrough. New Game+ unlocks additional quests and content.
- **Respec and try new builds** – Retained levels let you respec and experiment with different playstyles utilizing the same hero.
- **Find hidden areas** – Exploring off the beaten path may reveal secret dungeons, NPC quests and high-end loot you missed the first time around.
- **Co-op with friends** – Tackling New Game+ as a party makes the amplified challenges more fun.
- **Face greater tests** – Harder enemies and deadlier boss movesets put your skills to the test.

Plus, with no cap on the number of playthroughs available, you‘re free to keep restarting the adventure indefinitely.

## How Many Times Can You Restart or Respec?

There is no limit to the number of times you can restart Elden Ring and carry your character into another New Game+ cycle. The difficulty continues climbing with each additional playthrough, capping out at NG+7 offering the ultimate challenge.

For making changes within a playthrough, you can respec and reassign all your attributes up to 18 times per game cycle. This allows ample opportunity to tweak your build until it‘s just right.

The maximum level achievable in Elden Ring is 713, requiring 580+ hours for dedicated players according to community reports. So between multiple playthroughs and frequent respecing, you have all the tools needed to keep refining your warrior.

## Conclusion

While starting over in Elden Ring may seem daunting, you won‘t actually lose much of your coveted progress. And the things reset are deliberate design choices to ensure proper pacing. Meanwhile, retaining your levels and gear makes subsequent adventures more exciting.

I hope this guide gives you confidence to restart your epic quest knowing it will be even more enjoyable the second time around. Elden Ring offers an enormous world full of hidden secrets and challenges just waiting to be uncovered again. So don‘t be afraid to dive back in and round out your maidenless Tarnished‘s journey to full Elden Lord.

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Source: [What You Lose and Keep When Restarting Elden Ring](https://33rdsquare.com/what-do-you-lose-when-you-restart-elden-ring-2/)
