Update 2: Nier Automata director Yoko Taro has tweeted about the secret church, and his response is just as much trolling as fans have come to expect from the developer.
“You want to know about my insight?” Taro asks (opens in new tab). “In that case, you can find answers on my Twitter profile. Thanks.”
For those of you who are curious, Taro’s Twitter profile (opens in new tab) says like this: “I can’t reply about any products. Ask the publisher. I can’t reply to DMs except business and acquaintances.”
For the record, we’ve asked publisher Square Enix about the mystery church. We will provide another update if we learn more.
Update: The mystery surrounding Nier Automata’s secret church deepens, as the player who discovered it has provided more images, modders have started digging deeper, and the game’s developers have provided some vague comments.
The new movies provided by sadfutago on Reddit (opens in new tab) is almost four minutes long and shows A2 continuing through the winding corridor into the nave of the church. A short cutscene plays, highlighting a mannequin on an altar with a moon tear flower growing out of its chest and an immortal figure shrouded in black voxels.
Shortly after the cutscene, A2 and her pod have a brief exchange. A2 says “Whoa. What is that?” The pod responds “Unknown.” A2 then says “You’re useless.” (This conversation is a pretty good metaphor for where society is right now.) sadfutago notes (opens in new tab) that they had to “delete my Terraria and Far Cry 4” in order to record the video.
Members of the modding community have contacted sadfutago for further information. Apparently this footage was shot on a French Canadian PS4 copy of the game that was never updated. Now players are scrambling to test different game versions to follow sadfutago’s steps and see if they can open this secret door.
“We have so far found no evidence in the assets that this exists OTHER than the tower itself from late game,” modder xxk_ notes in a Reddit post (opens in new tab). xxk_ adds that “If this is a mod, this would be the first time anyone has done something like this, and NO ONE else knows how to make custom doors like you see in the video – it would be a relatively HUGE undertaking for a single individual to undertake with various modding breakthroughs.”
Meanwhile, Nier Automata producer Yosuke Saito has tweeted. First he sent one tweet (opens in new tab) in English says “eternal mystery.” Then one in Japanese, translated by aitaikimochi (opens in new tab), to say “This looks like something Yoko Taro would do. Lol.” Then came a self-translated one tweet (opens in new tab) says “First of all, calm down and make a reservation here,” pointing to a link for pre-orders of Nier Automata’s upcoming Switch port.
On the last point are some fans becomes convinced (opens in new tab) that this is some kind of viral marketing stunt for the Switch port, speculating that the church might actually be a Switch-exclusive area and that all this mystery is just a way to drum up public interest.
However, each new possibility seems as strange as the last, and regardless of the truth, it’s still fascinating to watch the story unfold.
Original Story: A Nier Automata player has stumbled upon what appears to be an unprecedented secret door, and the sudden revelation has the community “in shambles.”
A month ago, a Reddit user called sadfutago has made a post (opens in new tab) asking “how to access the church?” Apparently, this player had opened a door in the cloned city that led to the interior of a church-style building and was trying to figure out how to get back in. The problem was that there was no such door for the rest of society.
Shortly thereafter, sadfutago provided one handful of screenshots (opens in new tab) and a short video (opens in new tab) shows the way to the mysterious door. Some members of the community suspected a fake, pointing to the fact that the clip ended just after the door was opened. To that point, sadfutago replied “I didn’t want to record too much because my mom said she wouldn’t take the seat.”
Nothing more happened in a month’s time, until today, then sadfutago posted a longer clip (opens in new tab) shows what’s on the doorstep, including custom assets and animations that don’t seem to have precedent anywhere else in the game.
Someone randomly posted a video on the Nier Automata subreddit showing them finding a secret room in the cloned city. So far, no one else has figured out how they managed to make this secret door appear. Literally 1 person on earth has visited this room and we are beyond amazed pic.twitter.com/g7W4JxiNDg25 July 2022
As a modder and dataminer Lance McDonald puts it (opens in new tab)“The community is in shambles over this discovery.”
Members of the Nier Automata modding community say that it is unlikely that this area was created through modders, as brand new maps with unique animations are far beyond what modders’ tools can build right now.
That leaves us with three possibilities. Someone is either pulling an elaborate prank by creating a Nier Automata mod way beyond what other modders have made possible, pulling an even more elaborate prank by perfectly animating a fake video of the game, or this door really is a new discovery that has somehow gone unnoticed in the five years since the game launched. Whatever the truth, it’s a remarkable mystery.
Nier Automata is coming to Switch in October, if you’re looking for a way to crack unsolved mysteries on the go.
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