Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Update 1.8.0 Adds More Than NG+, Raising Divine Gear’s Upgrade Cap From 13 to 27 and Introducing 300+ Engravable Runes

As promised in last week's franchise-wide update, Ubisoft has now released Update 1.8.0 for Assassin's Creed Valhalla. Its size varies quite a bit depending on the platform:

- Ubisoft Connect: 12.27 GB

- Steam: 7.8 GB

- Xbox Series X|S: 15.02 GB

- PlayStation 5: 5.26 GB

- PlayStation 4: 13.42 GB

- Xbox One: 13.8 GB

The patch's highlight is, of course, the long-awaited addition of the New Game Plus mode. Players can begin a new playthrough with their existing character progress after they have completed the Holy Day Quest, which is the last quest of the Hamtunscire region. This isn't quite at the point of the game's true ending, but given the gargantuan size of Assassin's Creed Valhalla, the developers decided to allow players to start their NG+ adventures a little earlier.

The team also explained that in NG+, obtaining gear you already own or interacting with a Book of Knowledge you have already acquired will grant a new source called Mithril. Mithril will also be available from the Niflheim, Mastery, and River Raid shops, giving players who wish to continue their endgame adventure another source of materials. In addition, Wealth Chests that would normally contain Carbon, Nickel, or Tungsten will instead award Platinum, an ingot previously exclusive to the Dawn of Ragnarok DLC, now available for free. As a result, upgrading gear to Divine quality will no longer require that DLC.

Each iteration of NG+ will get tougher, and Ubisoft promises worthy challenges for players. To keep up with them, the developers have increased the maximum upgrade level for every piece of Divine gear from 13 to 27, giving gear even more potential power. Upgrades will now require the new Mithril resource, so players will need plenty of that.

Moreover, Ubisoft introduced an Extended Progression Mode that is designed to provide a more granular sense of progression. When enabled, Gear upgrades and Runes will increase Power by 1 point, and Masteries increase Power every 5 skill points, thus increasing the impact of gear.

The Rune Forge has received a substantial update, too: players will find a new tab in the menu where they can upgrade runes using silver. Runes can be upgraded from lesser to normal, then normal to greater, and finally from greater to superior, a new tier available only through the rune upgrade page. The final upgrade costs Mithril instead of silver and gives players even more power from their runes.

The Rune Forge's second addition is to the engrave page, which now offers more than 300 runes to engrave. Players can use it to engrave every perk added since Assassin's Creed Valhalla launched, including perks from DLCs and the Helix Store. Once players acquire a weapon or a full armor set, they'll find it in the engrave menu and can turn it into a rune for 450 silver. This opens up lots of new perk combinations, according to Ubisoft.

Lastly, the update adds a Stash in Ravensthorpe, which allows players to store any piece of gear and any rune from their inventory.

Update 1.8.0 for Assassin's Creed Valhalla also implements native PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) 2.0, enhancing image quality on PlayStation 5 Pro consoles.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla is the best-performing game in the series, having surpassed a billion in revenue in February 2022, just fifteen months after launch. Most recently, Ubisoft said the game had registered over 40 million players to date.

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