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Why aren't more games doing New Game+?

R

RedSwirl

Junior Member
You'd think this would be a huge trend by now: Let you start over when you beat the game but with some or all your upgrades and stats, and in some cases force you to bring those upgrades into the next difficulty mode. Developers have been finding ways to extend the singleplayer game with experience points, crafting, unlockable skills, challenges, and other bloated crap to discourage you from trading it in. NG+ seems like a relatively simple way to multiply that gameplay time.

The only "AAA" game I currently see doing a good job of this is Dead Space, similar to how Resident Evil 4 handled it. Even though I didn't enjoy Dead Space to an extreme extent, NG+ still convinced me to play through the game again at least once.

Even better are the games where hard mode basically is NG+. So far I've only seen Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Torchlight II do this. I guess Phantasy Star Online's difficulty modes work sort of the same way.
 
I totally agree. IMO, New Game+ can offer a solid replay value. That could be about unlocking bosses/weapons or making the game tougher... but it also could be about allowing you to replay the whole game with your old stuff you gathered through your first game.
 
Should be standard for games with unlockable abilities. Dishonored and Vanquish could have really benefited from this, in my opinion.
 
There's absolutely, 100% no disadvantage to the consumer about providing New Game+ as an option, period. And it's extremely easy to implement in pretty much any game with a progression-based/RPG-mechanics-based system.

But even though it's objectively very easy and not at all costly to implement, there's not a loud enough demand for it. If people were more vocal about wanting NG+, it'd happen more often. A good example of this is the fact that it was implemented into Deus Ex: HR's Director's Cut after there was a big outcry about how badly the game needed an NG+ feature.
 
Tons of games should be doing this. It seems so easy but I'm sure it's not for some reason. Just take away key-type items.
 
I enjoy New Game +, I just hate it when content is unavailable/you can't see everything the game has to offer on your first playthrough.
 
Yep. Love it in Darksiders 2, and hell, even Driver: San Francisco has it. Borderlands 2 of course. And Mark of the Ninja has a nice super difficulty that you can play after you've got your feet wet. Yep, love it.

I also love the Tom Clancy games (Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, Splinter Cell) where you can replay the campaign missions as much as you want with your unlocked loadouts and customizations across game modes. Adds a lot of replay value to the campaign, co-op and terrorist hunt modes.

Bulletstorm is one game where you really feel like its missing. Tomb Raider too to some extent, but that's such a linear story-driven game that its harder to see how that would work.

entrement said:
Probably don't want to break the balancing and having to test for it. Otherwise more QA work.
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Better games require more QA work. And it can always be justified by providing incentive to players to hold on to their games for longer. Replay value can keep a game from going directly back for trade-in.
 
The games are designed to be consumable, they dont want you playing the same game over and over, they want one and done and on to the next game
 
Coxy said:
The games are designed to be consumable, they dont want you playing the same game over and over, they want one and done and on to the next game
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Yet publishers want us to hold on to our games instead of trading them in.

Those two aims seem to be at cross purposes.

kazebyaka said:
10-15% gamers finish games, why even bother with NG+?
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What a weird stat to have. You'd think that'd really depend upon the genre and game. Finishing Skyrim is different than finishing Arkham Asylum is different than finishing Black Ops which is different than finishing Portal which is different than finishing Left 4 Dead, etc, etc. How much is there to really glean from one lump statistic like that?
 
I miss it buy I think this gen let devs get metrics back and they saw how few people completed their games even once and figured it was a waste of their time and talent.
 
I was a bit surprised it wasn't in SR3 given that you can replay all the other missions including the DLC ones. Oh well.
 
entrement said:
Probably don't want to break the balancing and having to test for it. Otherwise more QA work.
Click to expand...

Yeah, theoretically it means more QA work in some games if NG+ features would let you get outside of the level or kill enemies that aren't supposed to be killable, but scripting is generally pretty damn resistant to this sort of thing being a problem (sometimes immersion-breakingly so).

And you don't need NG+ to be balanced. The entire point, in many of the games in which it's implemented, is that it's not at all balanced and that's okay. You just need it not to cause sequence breaking or bound-escaping that leads to errors.
 
To be honest, I have never used New Game+ and probably never will. I barely ever replay any single player game that takes more than one sitting to beat, and if I do, I prefer to have a clean slate.

But if a lot of folks want it, then why not?
 
The newgame + has to actually offer something to interest people in playing the game again rather than you just carrying on your previous character state.
I think demon's/dark souls does this well by increasing difficulty each time & therefore still making the game challenging even after completing it.
As much as I love TLOU it doesn't really offer anything new in new game +, which is slightly disappointing. But I can forgive ND as they've made arguably the best game to ever release on the PS3 :D
 
entrement said:
Probably don't want to break the balancing and having to test for it. Otherwise more QA work.
Click to expand...

Sort of, but it also allows for a shorter game with less unique features, thus reducing work for developers. They just have to allow your stats to scale up. Less unique features sounds bad, but it all depends on the developers implementation of creating more possibilities with the content already provided.

With that said, it totally depends on the game. A loot driven diabloesque game basically requires it, whereas it may not work for story centric game.
 
kazebyaka said:
10-15% gamers finish games, why even bother with NG+?
Click to expand...

The thing is, NG+ is really damn simple to implement most of the time unless you're trying to flesh it out into an entire new difficulty. If it's just "here, you're overpowered as hell, go to town," that's pretty much as simple as keeping statistics and inventory and resetting your story progress markers (and a couple other variables) in most games.
 
I think Namco nails the NG+ in the Tales of series. Earn points based on what you do the first time and you get to unlock stuff for the second play through. I love it.
 
Some amount of consideration does have to go into NG+ modes. Otherwise it can be game breaking/coincidentally difficult at times.

Especially when you have those "defeat but not kill" missions in games.
EX:Ardjet fight in ZOE2, where a fully upgraded Jehuty would kill her in 2 hits.
 
All of them should. Especially for JRPGs where you're grinding in the beginning most of the time. Chrono Trigger did it the best. Allowed us to enjoy the story again and again.
 
I wish games had a modified version of NG+ where you can actually create a new character (in character-based RPG style games). For stuff like Demon's and Dark Souls, by the time I finished those games I had an established character through which I played the entire game. If I wanted to replay the game I wanted a whole new experience with a new character and new play style, except NG+s railroad me into the same play style I'm already sick of. Games with NG+ also tend to have several secrets/weapons/whatevers exclusively in extra playthroughs, and I want to access that stuff with a new character but I can't because I can't get a new character with NG+ :(

Mario Galaxy also had a flawed implementation of NG+. IIRC you can't start a new save file with Luigi, meaning if you played the Luigi playthrough for maybe a couple hours after beating the game and didn't come back, when you came back to play again you just can't start over with Luigi. Your progress in Luigi mode is basically permanent unless you go out of your way to copy that Luigi save file exactly when you start the game.

OmahaG8 said:
So why bother with endings?

/devils advocate
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Sadly enough, this is actually becoming the mentality of studios/publishers. Tons of games now have shit endgames (shitty last levels, terrible final bosses, hilariously shot endings that last sometimes literally 1 minute before dumping you to the credits screen, or all combination of the three), because they just don't want to put the effort and budget to a portion of the game only 10-15% of people are going to see.

Unfortunately for those of us who do finish games, we get shafted out of a good last half hour and we end up with a sour taste in general.
 
What I'd prefer more than NG+ are skilltrees that allow for specialized character builds and not generalists, so that I could replay the game over and over playing it vastly differently rather than getting more and more powerful. People really wanted NG+ in Human Revolution, and I could see why since the game let you pretty much invest in every ability you'd want, but the original was more fun to replay due to your choices blocking you off from others. Gave me more incentive to mix and match all kinds of approaches.
 
Dreamgazer said:
Some amount of consideration does have to go into NG+ modes. Otherwise it can be game breaking/coincidentally difficult at times.

Especially when you have those "defeat but not kill" missions in games.
EX:Ardjet fight in ZOE2, where a fully upgraded Jehuty would kill her in 2 hits.
Click to expand...

Yeah, absolutely, but some amount of scripting can get around this. Especially in boss battles that you're supposed to lose, for example, you can have the same cutscene play regardless of which end state (defeat or victory) the battle goes to.

But yeah, "defeat but not kill" stuff would be a problem for sure that'd require some trickier thought from the developer. That sort of thing is exceedingly rare, though, since 99% of games are pretty much just about "kill, kill, kill."
 
Most games don't have a need for it. You see and do everything on your first playthrough. Would be nice for the games that could benefit from it.
 
GhostTrick said:
I totally agree. IMO, New Game+ can offer a solid replay value. That could be about unlocking bosses/weapons or making the game tougher... but it also could be about allowing you to replay the whole game with your old stuff you gathered through your first game.
Click to expand...

all RPGs need to implement this, sometimes I want to replay a game but the though of grinding for levels again kills my interest
 
zruben said:
New Game + is dead because nowadays, replayability is called DLC.
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New Game+ isn't dead whatsoever; it's still in plenty of games (see the Dead Space series, for example). This thread is about questioning the games where it's really obviously lacking (like Vanquish or Bulletstorm, or the Final Fantasy games, or the Kingdom Hearts games).
 
The Last of Us does this I think pretty well, although I haven't completed it yet on NG+. I also loved that Parasite Eve did this, I must've literally completed the game about 14 times if I remember correctly. I do wish more games would do this, I know it's 2 generations ago but I wish Final Fantasy VIII had a Plus mode. Some games are designed around a potential NG+ mode, but there is many that other GAF'ers can list that would suit the mode.
 
Goldenroad said:
I think I'd still be playing Bioshock Infinite if it had NG+
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Agreed. I would love if Bioshock Infinite had a NG+ so you could at least keep your vigor and weapon upgrades with each playthrough. It's fine if we don't have all our vigors at the beginning of the game (because of story stuff), but at least keep the upgrades when we get them. D:
 
New Game+ is Platinum Games' specialty.

Bayonetta and Metal Gear Rising had you play through harder difficulties with all the weapons and unlockables you had in your first playthrough.

It would've been amazing if Vanquish let you do this with your fully upgraded weapons. The max-level Shotgun was so awesome. It's too bad that by the time you got to max your guns in Vanquish, you were already at the end of the game. Challenges would've been so much more fun if they let you used the weapons that you maxed out in story mode.

Even as Clover Studios they specialized in it; Viewtiful Joe and Okami do New Game+ the same way that Bayonetta and Rising did (Okami did it to a degree though).

I'm pretty sure The Wonderful 101 and Bayonetta 2 are going to have New Game+ when they release as well.
 
It's all about tacked-in multiplayer these days to keep players engaged. Tomb Raider needed a multiplayer mode so badly, also Dead Space 3 co-op was truly where the game shined right?
 
I'm still pissed that Sleeping Dogs doesn't have NG+. I don't want to run around looking for jade statues and health shrines, just let me kick some ass already.

And I'd also say The Last of Us does this well but there's only one problem, still have to unlock all of the guns as the story progresses. Can't I have everything from the beginning?
 
on one hand i'm glad it's not more prevalent. i don't have as much time as i used to to play games. it's enough to get through most games, but i won't be doing multiple playthroughs any time soon, if ever. and i'd like to have the full experience, and not be denied that because they want me to play a bunch of times.

on the other hand if i do play the game again, it's a nice touch that there'll be something different about it, as to not be 100% the same exact thing you already played.

i'm completely for a new game+ having access to things earlier, and more difficulties. like the souls games. i'm at odds about including bosses or items/moves/areas/etc that you can't touch until your second time around.
 
Because NG+ is all about actual deep gameplay systems, versus a focus on shallow production values (when its the latter that leads to huge sellers)
 
geomon said:
I'm still pissed that Sleeping Dogs doesn't have NG+. I don't want to run around looking for jade statues and health shrines, just let me kick some ass already.

And I'd also say The Last of Us does this well but there's only one problem, still have to unlock all of the guns as the story progresses. Can't I have everything from the beginning?
Click to expand...

This kills all incentive for me to replay the game. What's wrong with wanting to blow through the game a second time with shottys and a flamethrower? I played it right the first time.
 
Most games aren't designed to be replayable, which is a euphemistic way of saying their gameplay doesn't warrant to be used as anything other than a key to unlock more of the story.
 
I think the only games I play in NG+ are Ratchet and Clanks challenge mode and I thoroughly enjoy each one. For some reason I never really play NG+ on other games and I'm not sure why.
 
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