10 Elden Ring Regions That Feel More Dangerous in NG+

Elden Ring is the kind of magical video game you'll always want to return to for one reason or another, whether it's to try out new builds or simply to relive its magnificent world.

However, subsequent playthroughs are unique experiences in themselves, as they change both your character's attributes and your understanding of the challenges that await you.

You know where everything and everyone is, where to go for main and side quests, and distinguish which bosses might give you trouble from those that won't… You become a professional Tarnished, though even that doesn't protect you from The Lands Between's dangers.

Thus, NG+ becomes easier for many reasons, but it also keeps many of its threats virtually intact or even renewed, as I invite you to read in this list of ten Elden Ring regions that feel more dangerous after a second playthrough.

10 Ordina, Liturgical Town

Arrows Are Omnipotent

Despite being a transitional area where you spend very little time, Ordina, Liturgical Town, can be surprisingly annoying once you remove the element of surprise.

When you arrive, knowing all that awaits you is a series of albinauric archers with accuracy that would rival Legolas, plus an invisible Black Knife Assassin who seems to be omnipresent, you'll never want to fight Malenia again.

Ultimately, the only function of this area is to grant you access to the Legacy Dungeon, where you face the Blade of Miquella, and although it only presents a puzzle where you can skip all the enemies, doing so is hardly practical.

Fortunately, the only thing more certain than its tedium is how quickly the ordeal ends, so it's not so bad. However, I would sincerely appreciate it if opening the teleporter to the Haligtree once was enough to make it active forever, so I would never have to go through Ordina again.

9 Woodfolk Ruins

Death Blight Instead of Oxygen

I can't say Death Blight was a concern at any point during my extensive Elden Ring sessions, with the sole exception of Woodfolk Ruins on Altus Plateau, where I felt the same fear I felt in Dark Souls' Depths with the Basilisks.

Considering it's an area teeming with Wormfaces and obstacles that impede smooth movement, plus lighting deliberately designed to confuse your path, the danger scale climbs faster than you can predict.

If you get overconfident and aren't equipped with the appropriate rejuvenating boluses and armor with high resistance to Death Blight, or if you decide not to kill the enemies and go straight for the boss and the important loot, you'll end up impaled on a black tree in every run.

It's an easily avoidable problem if you take the necessary precautions, but if there's one thing Elden Ring players are known for, it's never wasting their consumables, always prioritizing Fashion Souls, and not killing a single mob in an area they've already been through once, so Woodfolk Ruins is effectively our kryptonite.

8 Caria Manor

Stupid Hands and Ghosts

Being attacked from blind spots is a common mechanic in many video games because it allows developers to warn of the dangers lurking around every corner, but Caria Manor takes it to another level.

This entire institution is teeming with creepy hands and annoying ghosts, hidden beneath the floorboards or behind every turn, making peaceful exploration impossible, even when you know they're waiting to ambush you.

For the first playthrough, where every discovery is exciting, and you feel the adrenaline rush of a unique location despite it not being a main one, it's not a problem, but in subsequent ones, the special atmosphere loses its charm, and the ganks only make you want to give up.

As you'll see throughout much of this list, many areas become irritating in NG+ because they're no longer surprising, and therefore, the player no longer engages properly with the challenges but instead tries to rush through everything, something that becomes incredibly problematic in Caria Manor.

7 Stormveil Castle

As Profound as It Is Confusing

The first Legacy Dungeon is, in turn, the most complex and fascinating of them all, as FromSoftware really went to great lengths to captivate the player from the very beginning. However, this has unexpected consequences for a second visit to Stormveil Castle.

If you're just going to fight Margit and Godrick, you'll be in and out in no time, but if you decide to explore it thoroughly, you'll realize how many things feel different when you no longer have the idealized view of your first experience.

The multi-level verticality, the difficulty of enemies like the Grafted Scions and Banished Knights, the endless twists and turns you have to take, the traps in the form of minions placed to push you or explode barrels… It's an impressive place, but also quite a troll.

And you love everything about your initial foray because it's new and fresh, but when you already know the tricks and still fall into them because you're impatient or forgetful, what originally feels like enjoyment ends up being a fast track to all the shortcuts to get out of there as quickly as possible.

6 Cathedral of the Forsaken

There Are No Stats for Parkour

Including the Cathedral of the Forsaken, a place with virtually no enemies, might sound like a joke, though I'd say anyone who's played through Elden Ring multiple times can agree there's one adversary that never ceases to be hellish: gravity.

Killing Mohg is demanding, but the incredibly precise and awkward parkour sequence that follows is a completely superior beast, where you'll fail so often that you'll genuinely question whether reaching the Three Fingers is even worth it.

The problem is that successive playthroughs of Elden Ring are best enjoyed when played differently, and I know most of us use them to seek out alternate endings (like the Frenzied Flame one) and complete unfinished questlines (like Hyetta's), so it's practically a must.

Furthermore, there is nothing more frustrating than being close to victory, exploring a bit, and then being eradicated from existence by a nomadic merchant you didn't even know could fight, which is a curious layer of difficulty to an area that has claimed far more lives than it seems.

5 Farum Azula

Threats Everywhere

Farum Azula is a rather large Legacy Dungeon, especially compared to the other areas on this list, but it's by far the one that becomes the most linearly challenging once you're no longer on your regular playthrough.

If you're in NG+, you'll be stunned by how all the enemies, from a random bird to the Draconic Tree Sentinel guarding the entrance to Maliketh's boss fight, can vanish you in seconds, reminding you that you're in an endgame area.

If you're using a new character, you'll be astonished by how the Godskin Duo is still a nerve-wracking boss, gravity becomes even more powerful because you're more confident than you should be, and the red lightning everyone seems to be able to summon is downright vicious.

In both cases, there's no escape: Farum Azula is difficult whether you try to explore it completely again or just want to get out of there fast, so it demands patience to avoid leaving the character completely stranded and moving on to another game.

4 Mistwood Ruins

Bears May Be Gods

Something you learn quite early on in your Elden Ring odyssey is that bears are the most powerful beings in The Lands Between, and you should never confront them unless absolutely necessary. Therefore, ideally, Mistwood Ruins should be avoided at any cost.

While there isn't much of interest, as its main contribution reduces to the Axe Talisman and Blaidd's presence, it's a terrifying area due to the absurd number of bears that lurk, completely ready to destroy you with a speed that even Elden Beast couldn't match.

They're fast, their attacks have short and unpredictable windups, their hitbox size is enormous, they deal enough damage to kill someone well above the recommended level for the area, and they're present in droves throughout Mistwood, so it's the complete package of pain.

Fortunately, it's a minor space within the region you can safely skip without leaving anything essential behind, though if you do have to pass through there for some reason or other... I'll be sure to pray for you.

3 Abyssal Woods

Instant Death Lurks

Torrent is the fundamental reason you can do numerous playthroughs of Elden Ring without wanting to tear your hair out, so its absence in Abyssal Woods feels so Machiavellian from the start that you know you're in for a rough time.

And indeed, being the only area of ​​the DLC I'm including on this list, what awaits you is painfully slow movement coupled with theoretically immortal enemies who, if they see you, kill you almost instantly, forcing you to be the one thing an Elden Ring enjoyer can't be: stealthy.

Asking patience from the same type of player who can't wait two seconds for a boss' combo to finish before safely landing the final blow seems almost unnatural, which makes your first trip to Abyssal Woods impressive and tense, but your second incredibly boring.

You no longer feel fear or pressure, but rather the annoyance of having to wait crouched in the tall grass to get past these creatures imported from the borders of Yharnam, which will lead you to make very bad decisions and run when you think you're out of danger… but you're not.

From then on, Abyssal Woods is a direct path to Midra's Manse, but I can say from personal experience you'll die many more times in your subsequent playthroughs than in your first, because experience takes away what you need most in this area: caution.

2 Subterranean Shunning-Grounds

The Imps are the Real Hell

After the bears, the second most powerful entity in this game is gravity, while the third is the imps, and both make an appearance in a Subterranean Shunning-Grounds that is synonymous with headaches.

Its labyrinthine layout, especially when navigating the pipes, makes it confusing on both the first and fortieth playthroughs, so that simply reaching your destination becomes a rather tedious waste of time.

Nevertheless, with omens, royal revenants, and rats, what at first is just a problem of spatial awareness takes on an additional layer of difficulty due to the addition of the most annoying enemies in the entire game, including imps that are in the most unfortunate positions to ruin your afternoon.

If they knock you down, the lobsters (beings so powerful that they don't even enter the entities' power scale mentioned earlier) will make you their dinner, and if they don't, you'll still fall on your own because you get lost easily, so there's no way to win except through stubbornness and numerous excursions.

1 Miquella's Haligtree

Oh, Gravity and Rot

If you consider the majority of sentient and non-sentient entities that drain your temperance from 100 to 0 in seconds within Elden Ring, chances are some of them are present in Miquella's Haligtree, the most patience-testing place in the entire title.

Besides being an endgame zone with scaling appropriate to its condition, it has the most exasperating array of foes, including giant ants, misbegotten, mages, and envoys, in addition to the infamous Kindreds of Rot that can snipe you from three buildings away.

Then there's the matter of gravity and the uneven terrain, the rot lake, the fights against Avatars and Cristallians in arenas five centimeters in diameter, and the constant jumping required because each platform is separated by kilometer-long drops or obstacles of all kinds.

It's a fascinatingly designed area, especially aesthetically, but it's also conceived in every way FromSoftware could come up with to unsettle the player from the mere thought of having to pass through it to fight Malenia.

Whether on your first playthrough or your tenth, Miquella's Haligtree is the ultimate test of skill and patience in Elden Ring, while the rest are a challenge of one or the other, but not both, making the jump in difficulty the most noticeable by far.