Information about New Game + in Fire Emblem Three Hopes, including what carries over and what unlocks on subsequent playthroughs.

How to Unlock New Game + in Fire Emblem Three Hopes¶

When you complete the game you’ll unlock New Game +. Just make an end save when prompted and go to start a new game and you’ll be prompted to import data from a previous save, which will be auto-detected. Once you’ve loaded your New Game + save you’ll be able to choose on a character-by-character basis whether you want to keep earned levels, after which you’ll get to choose the difficulty for the next playthrough… including the new Maddening difficulty.

What Carries Over to a New Game + Playthrough in Fire Emblem Three Hopes?¶

Fire Emblem Three Hopes is incredibly generous with New Game + content - to get the whole story (or rather, as much as you can get from the game itself) you’re rather expected to do three playthroughs… perhaps more depending on the choices you make during each playthrough. That being the case, it would be easier to list what doesn’t carry over, which is mostly temporary features of the Base Camp that are progression-locked. Since that’s probably not a very satisfying answer, however, let’s just go over everything that does unlock for the sake of clarity:

• Unlocked characters… kind of: Bit of an asterisk on this one. Characters you recruited or unlocked on previous playthroughs will remain unlocked on subsequent New Game + playthroughs. They will, however, be segregated from the rest of your units. You can still check their stats via the Convoy (they’ll be in the “Other” category), change their class, equipment, and even unlock new classes via the Training Grounds. You cannot, however, use them in most battles, train with them, invite them to volunteer or share meals until you recruit them again, if indeed you can recruit them (not all characters are available in each route). All previously unlocked characters, recruited or not, can participate in battles via the Record Keeper. You will have to unlock the Record Keeper again by progressing to Chapter 5 for this option to be available, however.

• Character levels. Whatever level your characters achieved will carry over to New Game + unless you go out of your way to choose otherwise. You be given the option to reset the levels of characters you unlocked last playthrough on a character-by-character basis when you start a new playthrough. This might seem generous, but you can already reset character levels at the Training Grounds at no cost. The practical upside of doing this? Making the next playthrough less of a pushover, difficulty depending. It also allows you to level up characters again with access to higher-tier classes and the better growth rates those classes provide.

• Class Unlocks and Mastery: Any classes any character has unlocked and their level of mastery in said class (including unlocked Combat Arts and Magics) will automatically be retained. Characters will also retain any weapon proficiencies earned and ranks in Combat Arts and Magics.

• Support Ranks: This is optional, but you can choose to retain all previously unlocked Support Ranks and Support Points upon starting a new playthrough.

• Weapons, Battalions, Accessories, Gold, Renown, Resources and Materials: Pretty much every item you can earn, you’ll keep automatically for New Game +. This includes all your weapons and accessories, even character-specific Hero Relics, and character-specific Battalions. It’s worth noting that you won’t be able to unleash, forge, repair or otherwise modify weapons until you unlock the Blacksmith again in Chapter 5. You’ll also keep any special accessories you earned by giving characters the [Merc Whistle] during previous playthroughs.

• Camp Level and Facility Upgrades: All your facility upgrades, and hence your Camp Level, will be retained for New Game +. This means you’ll start out with more Activity Points, more dishes unlocked, more Training slots, and greater odds of succeeding while cooking and volunteering. That said, any features that are locked behind main questline progression - which includes pretty much every feature in the Base Camp - will remain locked no matter how upgraded it is. You can’t use the Blacksmith, Battalion Master or Supply Master until Chapter 5, and the Tactics Academy won’t be available until Chapter 6. You’ll retain the benefits of these facilities (ie, any upgrades purchased via the Tactics Academy will be retained), but you won’t be able to utilize them to upgrade new weapons/characters until you progress through the main questline far enough to unlock them again.

As you can see, you keep pretty much everything, and what you don’t keep is either something you chose not to keep, or something that has to be unlocked again (characters that must be re-recruited and Base Camp facilities and activities which must be unlocked via main quest progression).

What Unlocks in New Game +?¶

In addition to keeping virtually all of your progress from previous playthroughs when you start up a New Game + playthrough, you also unlock a few new things that weren’t available during your first playthrough. These new features generally fall into two categories: Things you can purchase with Renown, and the Maddening difficulty mode.

Maddening Difficulty Mode¶

Once you complete the game one time on any difficulty, you’ll be able to choose Maddening difficulty on subsequent playthroughs. Maddening difficulty functions just like the other difficulties, albeit adding another tier of challenge to battles.

Starting on Chapter 4 (enemies will be their normal weakling variants prior to this) you can expect to see foes starting out at Lv 100+, equipped with +75 weapons. Their classes and the base quality of their weapons will remain unchanged, however - you’ll be going up against Lv 106 Myrmidons, Cavaliers, Archers, Brawlers, Fighters, etc., during the first few maps, most of which will be equipped with Iron weapons. As you advance through the main questline you can look forward to fighting enemies with higher-tier classes (and hence, stats, thanks to their better growth rates) who will be equipped with better weapons (steel, killer, silver, brave, etc.).

Suffice to say, Maddening difficulty isn’t recommended for charcters who aren’t at least Lv 50+ and equipped with weapons of a similar level of enhancement. For properly leveled and equipped characters, however, Maddening difficulty merely keeps pace with your own character’s power scaling, and makes for an enjoyable second playthrough. For more practical considerations, you’ll gain more experience for defeating these higher-level foes, as well as rarer material and weapon drops - from the very first Side Quest battle you should expect to see A-rank weapons dropping regularly. Alas, Gold accumulation doesn’t appear to be improved on these higher difficulties.

New Game + Renown Items and Equipment¶

Once you reach Chapter 4 you can search the Journal in your Personal Quarters in the Base Camp. This is where you can buy spend Renown to purchase various items; in your first playthrough this is limited to permanent stat-boosting consumables, which are all well and good, but in New Game + you’ll be able to buy a variety of new items, including equipment (weapons, accessories and crest signs), characters (Rhea, Sothis and Arval) and the new Vanguard Whistle item, the latter of which costs 3 Renown per purchase and allows you to conquer regions on the War Map without actually having the fight the battles again, should you wish to speed things up.

Arval and Sothis are both Lv 50 Gremorys by default, while Rhea is a Lv 50 Saint, a hybrid sword-user/spellcaster whose moveset is pretty much identical to the Swordmaster/Mortal Savant (in fact, Saint replaces Mortal Savant on Rhea’s class tree). These units tend to be able to learn rarer Class Skills, like Undaunted (Wyvern Lord), Luna (Great Knight), Sol (Falcon Knight)… oddly similar to Flayn. Each of these units will cost you 60 Renown to unlock, and Rhea comes with the Sword of Seiros and Seiros Shield.

As far as equipment goes, the real winners are the Sublime Creator Sword and Dark Creator Sword, the former of which can only be used by Byleth or Sothis and enables either to use the Sublime Heaven Combat Art. The Dark Creator Sword is a slightly toned-down version of the Sublime Creator Sword which anybody can use - they share the same stats and both have a modifier that causes “attacks to hit twice”, which absolutely brutalizes enemy Stun Gauges.

Other than that, there are some weapons wielded by enemies in the main questline which are… moderately useful, at best. Weapons like Athame and Ridill have decent stats for a C-Rank weapon, but you’ll find better Silver and Zoltan weapons. Asclepius is an excellent accessory for a dedicated caster, however.

You likely picked up an Experience Gem or Knowledge Gem during your playthrough, but you could only obtain one. Now you can grab three more by spending Renown - useful if you want to speed up character growth on your second playthrough. Experience Gems increase the Exp you earn in battle, while Knowledge Gems give you class Exp.

All of the above cost 15 Renown each.

Finally we have the Crest Signs, which can be equipped like accessories and give you the effects of different Crests when equipped. Useful if you absolutely must have the special boon granted by a specific [Hero Relic], but generally you’ll be better off with another accessory/weapon combo. There just aren’t a lot of weapons with crest-boosted effects worth sacrificing your accessory slot over, the exception, perhaps, being leveled Hero Relics you want to use to boost up low-level, crestless characters, who will appreciate the massive damage boost these E-Rank weapons bestow.

Or you could just pay to level up them at the Training Grounds.