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New Game Plus
September 9, 2026 at 01:09 AM
Initial version (2026-09-08)
DUST: Origins treats a finished run as the beginning of the next one. Every completion carries over into New Game Plus and grants access to new items that enhance the following playthrough, and the studio has built its unlock structure around the assumption that players will go back in more than once.
The carry-over is item-based rather than a straight power transfer. Outcomes reached in a run unlock stash items, and those items become available in New Game Plus.
Source | What it unlocks |
|---|---|
Reaching an ending | A unique extra recorded in the Endings Collection, available in later runs. |
Seeing a post-credits epilogue | A unique extra, tied to the character whose fate was revealed. |
Triggering a dead end for the first time | A unique extra. Dying in a new way is treated as progress rather than as a wasted run. |
The extras themselves range widely. Exotic weapons and mods are the gameplay-affecting end of the range, and 3D character models that can be inspected in a model viewer are the collectible end. Both are accessed through New Game Plus.
New Game Plus is also where harder difficulty settings live. The studio pairs the two deliberately: the same mode that hands the player better equipment also offers a tougher station to use it on, so a repeat run is not simply an easier version of the first. The official site describes the escalation in stacking terms, joking about New Game Plus and its increasingly plus-signed successors, which points at more than one tier without confirming how many.
Only one ending can be reached per playthrough, so seeing the others requires starting over.
Epilogues are tied to individual characters, and the studio has said completing the game multiple times is required to see them all.
The Endings Collection is explicitly a completion tracker, which implies a target most players will not hit on a first attempt.
Different survivor decisions open different routes and side missions, so parts of the station may go unseen in any single run.
A first run starts the player outmatched and outgunned, sometimes with little more than a broken shiv and a few bullets. A New Game Plus run starts with access to stashed unlocks instead, which shifts the early game from pure scarcity toward deliberate loadout building. Scavenging and crafting still matter, since materials and ammunition are still finite, but the opening hours are a different problem when exotic gear is already on the table.
How many New Game Plus tiers exist, and whether the plus signs on the official site are literal.
What the harder difficulties change: enemy health, damage, resource availability, or something else.
Whether stat upgrades, crafting materials or currency carry over, or only stash items.
Whether any ending or area is exclusive to a New Game Plus run.
Whether extras can be selected individually at the start of a run or are simply added to the world.
Whether difficulty can be raised without starting a New Game Plus run.
