‘God of War’s’ New Game+ Mode Comes Out Aug. 20

By Stefanie Fogel

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Get ready to enjoy some Norse-style father-son bonding all over again. is releasing “’s” New Game+ patch on Aug. 20, it announced on Wednesday.

The developer revealed it’s working on the feature in June. It will be available as a free update for all players, but they have to complete the game’s story campaign on any difficulty to access it.

“God of War’s” New Game+ mode was inspired by player feedback, Sony Santa Monica said, and it comes with a number of new additions and tweaks. Players can take all of their previous armors, enchantments, talismans, resources, and abilities into New Game+, but there’s also a new rarity level of equipment for them to craft and upgrade using a new resource called Skap Slag. Enemies are higher level and some have new abilities. Additionally, players can now skip cinematic cutscenes in both normal and New Game+ once they’ve finished a full playthrough.

“This is easily our biggest update to ‘God of War,’” Sony Santa Monica said in a post on the PlayStation Blog . “We’re certainly looking forward to seeing who completes Give Me God of War New Game+ mode first. That’s a feat! Thank you, thank you, thank you for your patience and allowing us the development time necessary to create New Game+.”

“God of War” came out in April and quickly became the fastest-selling PlayStation 4 exclusive after selling more than 3.1 million copies worldwide in its first three days. You can check out Variety’s review here .