New Game Plus (Dark Souls II)

New Game Plus is a gameplay mechanic in Dark Souls II.

Upon defeating Nashandra, New Game+ (or NG+) can be entered at any time from the bonfire in Majula.

Differences
The story and events in New Game+ are identical to New Game. The player keeps all non-story based acquired weapons, armor, items and rings, and retains their level, stats, and convenant standings. The primary differences are an increase in game difficulty, in the form of more powerful enemies, and greater reward in souls for their defeat. However, other differences include the introduction of new enemies in certain locations, additional item drops from certain bosses, and even minor changes to a few boss fight mechanics.

Items Lost

 * The King's Ring.
 * The Giant's Kinship.
 * The Ashen Mist Heart.
 * Most Keys.

Exceptions are the keys added for accessing The Lost Crowns downloadable content.

New Game+ and Beyond
Once the player reaches the end again they will start with an even harder difficulty and an increase in souls received from enemies but only marginally so. Enemies gain 2, 3, or 4 times the damage and souls while health usually only doubles. After this, the increase is minute. The difficulty increase stops at New Game+7.

Additional Changes
Along with an increase in difficulty, there are other differences between New Game and New Game+.

Things Betwixt
 * Falconers spawn around the immediate area where New Game+ begins.
 * A pair of Dark Spirit goblins spawn before the bridge to Old Ladies' hut.
 * A Dark Spirit wielding an Avelyn will spawn in the room with the archer.

Majula
 * Moon Butterfly Set is now purchasable from Maughlin the Armorer.
 * A new Skeleton enemy is added in the mansion basement for each addition of New Game+ (i.e. if one is on New Game +2, there will be 3 skeletons in the basement).

Forest of Fallen Giants
 * A Catarina Knight Dark Spirit appears near the Soldier's Rest bonfire.
 * A Dark Spirit wielding a Heide Knight Sword and a Dagger spawns near Mild-Mannered Pate.
 * An Old Ironclad Soldier Dark Spirit spawns near one of the giant memories.
 * A Hollow Soldier spawns in the open stairwell before The Pursuer boss fight.
 * A pair of Dark Spirits spawn at the door to the King's Gate bonfire. One of them is similar to the one found near Pate, and the other wields a Greatshield and Mastodon Greatsword.
 * The chest in the room with several ballistas that normally contains a Titanite Shard will have three Titanite Chunks instead.

Heide's Tower of Flame
 * Blue Sentinel Dark Spirits appear along the path to the Cathedral of Blue.
 * A Dark Spirit wielding a Chariot Lance spawns by the fog door leading to the Dragonrider boss fight.
 * Additional Old Knight spawn on the path to the boss fight.

No-Man's Wharf
 * A red phantom spawns before the boss fight and has a very low chance to drop the Aurous' Set.
 * During the fight with the Flexile Sentry, two Suspicious Shadows will spawn, who can drop the Shadow Set.

The Lost Bastille
 * A red phantom Undead Jailer spawns before the Heide Knight.

Sinner's Rise
 * During the fight with The Lost Sinner, two pyromancer phantoms will spawn.

Huntsman's Copse
 * A red phantom Artificial Undead spawns by the bridge before the Executioner's Chariot boss fight.
 * Most of the Torturers before the Executioner's Chariot boss fight are replaced by red phantom versions.
 * A pair of red phantom Artificial Undead spawn before Merciless Roenna and the Skeleton Lords boss fight one in front and one behind the player, blocking any escape routes.

Trivia

 * If the player is hollow when they meet the old ladies in ng+ the game thinks that you are on ng and resets your stats to base levels and makes you go through character creation again but keeps the difficulty at ng+ level.