Wo Long New Game Plus: How to begin Rising Dragon difficulty and how to get 5-Star gear

New Game Plus in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is known by a different name, sure, but it continues the Soulslike tradition of giving you a chance to take replay the game with more challenge and greater risk – all in the name of harvesting greater rewards. The setup here isn’t quite like New Game+ in other titles, as you’ll still have access to all the previous levels and their respective rewards, so that can make things a bit confusing.

The upshot of replaying the game on a (much!) harder difficulty is that you can unlock 5-Star gear which has better stats, more set bonuses, and is generally just better than the stuff you’ll pick up in the main game.

Unlocking, selecting, and playing through Rising Dragon difficulty can be a little obscure, so let’s go through everything you need to know about Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty’s unique take on new game plus below.

We’ll break this guide into three sections for ease. Click the link below to jump to the relevant part of the page.

• How to unlock Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty New Game+ (Rising Dragon difficulty)
• How to start Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty New Game+ (Rising Dragon difficulty)
• How to find 5-Star gear in Rising Dragon difficulty

How to unlock Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty New Game+ (Rising Dragon difficulty)

In order to unlock the ability to select and play Rising Dragon difficulty in Wo Long, you will need to complete the entire game first on the standard Crouching Dragon difficulty. This means you will need to complete at least all the main battlefield missions in all seven parts of the game.

If you’re nearing the end of the game and eager to press on, you’ll be pleased to know that Part 7 only has one main battlefield, though – an encounter with the final boss that I won’t spoil here. This fight is tough, but making good use of the Five Phases and knowing how to counter each element with its corresponding spell will help, and blocking the bosses’ assault and perfecting the timings of the awkward deflects will also help.

If you’re really struggling, consider swapping your Divine Beast to Qinglong: once deployed, this summon will heal you, and create a healing field that can keep you alive even in the midst of one of the bosses’ more aggressive assaults. Just be aware that fire damage will be amplified since this summon is of the Wood virtue. Good luck!

How to start Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty New Game+ (Rising Dragon difficulty)

Once you have beaten the final boss and the credits have rolled, you’ll be taken back to the main menu where you will see plenty of bonus sub-missions. I’d recommend clearing these before starting the new difficulty mode, as the New Game+ missions begin at Level 100 (and even that’s a conservative recommendation). Wrapping up the boss rush and the duels in Part 7 will easily get you over that threshold, if you’ve been exploring well as you go.

When you’re finally ready to start Rising Dragon difficulty, simply hit Y/Triangle on your pad of choice and you’ll be taken to a new menu where you can select the harder missions and peruse the new rewards on offer. You will only be able to play the first three parts at first, but more will open up as you tick up the battlefield completion percentage on the screen (be aware that sub battlefields will help this number increase).

When playing missions, you’ll notice most drops are in-line with your current level – that means +8 armour and gear is common. Some in-world items (Qi Flakes, for instance) remain the same as the low-level counterpart missions, but chests and boxes tend to carry more relevant items. Some resource chests are replaced with Rank 9 Steel or Rank 9 Leather, for example. But that’s not the best part about playing Rising Dragon difficulty…

How to find 5-Star gear in Rising Dragon difficulty

In order to excel and survive at the latter levels of Rising Dragon difficulty, you’ll need to trade out your 4-Star gear for 5-Star gear, at some point. These items can be found as rewards from bosses, sub-bosses and harder enemies in the missions, and occasionally as rewards for clearing missions, too.

Be aware that the drop rate is miniscule. You can upgrade your chances of getting decent items by equipping the hammer you can buy from Zou Ci for 7000 accolades, or by equipping The Dominator Of Hebei set that you can find in the very last missions of the previous difficulty (both these items and sets give the ‘Drop Rate A’ perk).

5-Star gear typically carries better perks and better stats than anything you’ll have picked up so far, and gives access to more armour set bonuses, too. Some of these are quite obscure, and since the drops are rare and hard-to-find, we’ve not figured out too many of the perks at the time of writing. There is a set bonus that increases all stats and damage if you balance all your virtue levels (ideal for sword users!) that seems pretty good, but I only have two pieces of that set at the moment.

I will update this piece with more information as I figure out how to better utilise 5-Star gear sets.