Quick answer: In Phantom Blade Zero, a New Cycle retains your gear, progression items, Ability Training, and Archives. Quests, maps, Key Items, and remaining days start over; you must ring all the bells once more.
New Game Plus in Phantom Blade Zero is called a New Cycle, and it only becomes available after you finish the ending. Your kit comes with you, but the story starts over from the beginning.
What the game says carries over
After the ending, talk to Inanis in the Realm of Mirage and pick New Cycle. A confirmation box then spells out the rules: “An even more perilous journey through the Wulin is about to begin. Equipment, progression items, Ability Training, and Archives will carry over. Quests, maps, Key Items, and remaining days will be reset.”
Next you choose a difficulty for the new cycle from WAYFARER, PATHBREAKER, HELLWALKER or 66 DAYS. The cycle opens on a forest road, and the Days Remaining counter is back on screen.
What carries over, in numbers
Your full collection survives the transition: a save with 24 weapons, 22 Phantom Edges, and 41 accessories retains all of them when the new cycle begins.
Materials, upgrade and progression items, medicines and outfits keep the same counts. Of 301 kinds of items in the bag before the New Cycle, 289 are still there with the same count.
Previously trained abilities remain trained because Ability Training carries forward. Banyan’s Heart used on ability nodes remains consumed, with none returned.
What the menus show in the new cycle
Across the menu tabs, the upper-right counter remains 4,220,263, matching your Remnant Dust total from before you entered the New Cycle.
Equipped weapons keep their upgrades, and the Character tab still lists the Sanguine Twin at +14 with Damage 460 and Guard Break 230.
Your Archives keep every entry you already unlocked, including The “Four Axes” Case Files under Books.
The story resets, leaving Against the Flow as the only story quest in the Quests tab; Weeping Creek Valley’s map shows Map Completion 0%.
The new-cycle save on the Load Game screen displays “Difficulty: WAYFARER” and “Cycle: 1”; its play time carries on from the first cycle. Saves from before the New Cycle remain listed without a Cycle line.
What resets
The story and quests return to their starting point. Soul is once again at the opening, bound for Pangzhen to follow Zuo Shang’s trail.
Your previous bell count does not carry forward: all 170 bells rung before the New Cycle must be rung again.
12 one-off items leave your bag. They are two keys from Key Items, the three Nuo Mask fragments, and seven quest items, including the gift you receive on arrival in the Realm of Mirage.
