Nier: Automata's final secret was found nearly 4 years after its release

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A cheat code, and an extremely strange one.

An image of white-haired, black wearing protagonists 2B and 9S from NieR: Automata
(Image credit: Square Enix)

Three years and ten months after release, someone finally found Nier: Automata's final secret. It was announced by discoverer Lance McDonald, then confirmed  by series director Yoko Taro less than seven hours later. The confirmation of the final secret was also noted by the official Nier account. Spoilers follow, but frankly you'd literally have to delve into the game's code to discover this. Here's Yoko Taro's tweet, with McDonald's tweet embedded:

The final secret was a cheat code performed after killing the first boss. It's a complex series of attacks, rolls, and moves in the vein of classic cheats that must be done while standing in a specific spot. Once performed, the player is instantly transported to the "last" of the endings, of which the game has many, a decision that deletes the user's save and unlocks bonus game modes. To be clear, it's not an exploit, it's a cheat deliberately programmed into the game. Asked how he found it, Lance McDonald replied, "hundreds of hours of reverse engineering."

Nier: Automata was a sleeper hit when it released, surprising both critics and series fans with its widespread popularity and complex narrative tricks. For  more on its narrative legacy, go over and read about how Nier: Automata's study of human frailty overpowers its own flaws.

Jonathan Bolding
Contributor

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.