Assassin's Creed Valhalla New Game+ Guide: Mithril and Gear Cap

Six years after launch, Assassin's Creed Valhalla finally has a New Game+ mode. Title Update 1.8.0, which Ubisoft calls "The Most Requested Update," went live free on November 5, 2026, across every platform, and it does a lot more than let you replay the campaign. A new currency called Mithril raises the gear level cap from 13 to 27, the Rune Forge gets an entirely new upgrade tier, and PS5 Pro owners get native PSSR 2 support on top of it. Here's exactly how to unlock New Game+, what carries over, and how to spend Mithril once you have it.

01What Title Update 1.8.0 actually changes

The free update adds four connected systems on top of the existing campaign: New Game+, an optional Extended Progression Mode, a gear and rune Stash in Ravensthorpe, and an overhauled Rune Forge. Download sizes vary a lot by platform — budget roughly 12.27 GB on Ubisoft Connect, 7.8 GB on Steam, 15.02 GB on Xbox Series X|S, 5.26 GB on PS5, and around 13-14 GB on the previous-generation consoles. Ubisoft also quietly rebalanced several weapon classes and Mastery trees in the same patch, so expect your build to feel a little different even before you touch New Game+.

Valhalla isn't the only Ubisoft game getting this treatment this month either — Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced picked up its own New Game+ mode in the same week, which the official Assassin's Creed account joked meant "two games to finish, all over again." For Valhalla specifically, the headline systems are Mithril and the higher gear cap, both of which only exist once you've crossed into New Game+.

02How to unlock New Game+

New Game+ isn't available from the start menu. You unlock it by completing Holy Day, the final quest in the Hamtunscire region, which Ubisoft places before Valhalla's true ending. If you've already finished the campaign on a previous save, you can jump straight into New Game+ as soon as you update; if you're mid-playthrough, finish your current main-story arc through Hamtunscire first.

Completing Holy Day for the first time after the update unlocks the Circle of Renewal achievement/trophy. From there, a prompt lets you start a new cycle immediately. Each New Game+ cycle is harder than the one before it, so treat the mode as a genuine difficulty ladder rather than a one-time victory lap — Ubisoft's own patch notes are explicit that enemies and encounters scale up with every loop.

03What carries over — and what doesn't

You keep your character level, skills, and the core story progress needed to reach Hamtunscire again quickly, but gear is where New Game+ gets interesting. Any duplicate gear or Books of Knowledge you pick up while in New Game+ are converted straight into Mithril instead of sitting in your inventory as clutter. That alone changes how you want to approach looting on a repeat run: don't skip chests just because you already own the item inside.

Wealth Chests that used to drop Carbon, Nickel, or Tungsten now drop Platinum instead — a resource that was previously locked behind the Dawn of Ragnarok and Wrath of the Druids DLC. That's a meaningful change for base-game-only players, since Platinum is one of the materials Divine gear upgrades need, and it means you can now push a weapon toward the new level cap without owning either expansion.

New Game+ also adds a cosmetic hook for anyone who's played Assassin's Creed Shadows: a Naoe-inspired Master Assassin outfit, built around her silhouette rather than anything tied to Eivor's existing wardrobe.

04Mithril and the new 27 gear level cap

Mithril is a brand-new material, separate from anything else in Valhalla's crafting economy. You'll find it in three places: the Niflheim shop, the Mastery shop, and the River Raid shop, alongside the duplicate-gear conversion mentioned above. Its only real use is pushing Divine gear past its old ceiling — the maximum upgrade level for Divine equipment has risen from 13 to 27, and every one of those new upgrade steps costs Mithril rather than the materials you used for the first thirteen levels.

Because Mithril is finite early in a New Game+ run, it's worth deciding which one or two weapons and armor pieces you actually want to chase to level 27 first, rather than spreading early Mithril thin across your whole loadout. Fully upgrading a single Divine gear piece to its new cap unlocks the Ivaldi's Heir achievement, so it's also a natural first Mithril goal if you're hunting trophies.

05Rune Forge changes and Extended Progression Mode

Ubisoft's patch notes describe the raised cap specifically in terms of Divine gear, so prioritize getting your favorite weapon or armor piece up to Divine rarity first if it isn't already — that's the tier the new level-27 ceiling is built around, and spending early Mithril on anything else is likely to be less efficient until you confirm what your other gear can actually reach.

The Rune Forge gained a new upgrade path alongside the level-cap increase. Taking a rune from lesser to normal, or normal to greater, still costs plain silver like before. Going from greater to superior is new, and it costs Mithril — superior is an entirely new top tier that only exists through this upgrade path, not as a drop. Ubisoft also added more than 300 new engravable runes to the pool, including ones tied to DLC content and Helix Store cosmetics that previously couldn't be engraved at all, and you can now engrave a full armor or weapon set in one pass for 450 silver instead of piece by piece.

If you'd rather not deal with New Game+'s harder scaling at all, Extended Progression Mode is an optional toggle that changes how you get stronger instead of resetting anything. With it on, every gear upgrade and every rune you slot adds 1 Power, and Mastery trees grant an extra point of Power for every five skill points you spend in them. It's aimed at players who want a reason to keep upgrading gear deep into New Game+ without necessarily chasing the hardest possible difficulty curve.

How to Start New Game+ Step by Step

1. 1Progress the main story until you reach the Hamtunscire region; New Game+ can't unlock before you get there.Varies
2. 2Finish Holy Day, the final quest in Hamtunscire. This unlocks the Circle of Renewal achievement and the New Game+ prompt, and happens before Valhalla's true ending.~30 min
3. 3Before starting your cycle, use the new Stash in Ravensthorpe to set aside your current best-in-slot weapons, armor, and runes as a reference loadout.5 min
4. 4Decide whether to toggle on Extended Progression Mode, which grants Power from gear upgrades, runes, and Mastery points instead of resetting your strength curve.1 min
5. 5Confirm the prompt after Holy Day to begin your cycle. Your skills and story progress carry over; enemies scale up immediately.Instant
6. 6Pick up duplicate gear, Books of Knowledge, and Wealth Chests (now dropping Platinum) as you replay zones — all convert into currency usable for the new gear tier.Ongoing
7. 7Focus Mithril on a single Divine weapon or armor piece first rather than spreading it thin, and fully upgrade it to unlock the Ivaldi's Heir achievement.Several hours
8. 8Spend silver on lesser-to-normal and normal-to-greater rune upgrades, then save Mithril for the new greater-to-superior tier once you have some to spare.Ongoing

06Should you use the Stash before jumping into New Game+?

Ravensthorpe now has a dedicated Stash that holds gear and runes pulled out of your inventory, separate from New Game+ entirely. It's worth using before you start your first New Game+ cycle: stash your current best-in-slot loadout so you have a known-good fallback, then feel free to be aggressive about selling or breaking down older gear for Mithril once you're in the new cycle, since you're no longer relying on carrying every old item forward manually.

It's a smaller, more surgical change than a full itemization overhaul or a new expansion — the level cap moves, the currencies around it change, but combat and the open world stay the same. Don't expect New Game+ to reinvent how Valhalla plays; it's built to extend the gear chase you already know, cycle after cycle.

07PS5 Pro players: what PSSR 2 changes

Title Update 1.8.0 adds native support for PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution 2 on PS5 Pro, which Ubisoft describes as improving both image quality and performance over the original PSSR implementation. There's no manual configuration step beyond having the update installed on PS5 Pro hardware — it's applied automatically rather than exposed as a settings-menu toggle in the patch notes.

Combat also got touched in this patch, separate from New Game+. Ubisoft corrected several per-point skill values (Assassination Damage now scales at 5.3, Health at 5.2, Evasion at 4.2), reworked how the Raven, Bear, and Wolf Masteries hand out their bonuses, and adjusted damage multipliers and animation speed for the Bearded Axe, Dagger, Spear, Greatsword, Scythe, and Sickle. Two Wolf skill-tree nodes tied to the Dawn of Ragnarok expansion were also changed to grant Light Attack Damage instead of their previous effect. None of this requires New Game+ to take effect — it applies to any save on the updated version.

Ubisoft's October 29, 2026 "Assassin's Creed: Fall 2026 Update" video first announced New Game+ for Valhalla ahead of its November 5 launch.

AC Valhalla: The Most Requested Update is now available for free. ⚔️ New Game+ 💪 Extended Progression Mode 🌄 PS5 Pro Optimization and more. Don't look for me this weekend, I have a game to finish. Again.

— Assassin's Creed (@assassinscreed) on X