Update 2: Nier Automata director Yoko Taro tweeted about the secret church, and his response is as teasing as fans have come to expect from the developer.
“Do you want to know about my insight?” Taro asks (opens in a new tab). “In that case, you can find the answer on my Twitter profile. Thanks.”
For those of you who are curious, Taro’s twitter profile (opens in a new tab) says this: “I can’t reply about any product. Ask the editor. I can’t reply DM except business and acquaintances.”
For the record, we asked publisher Square Enix about the mystery church. We will provide another update if we learn more.
to update: The mystery surrounding Nier Automata’s secret church is deepening as more images were provided by the player who discovered it, modders began to investigate further, and some vague feedback was provided by the game’s developers.
The new images provided by sadfutago on Reddit (opens in a new tab) it runs for almost four minutes and shows A2 continuing down the winding corridor towards the nave of the church. A brief cutscene plays, featuring a mannequin on an altar with a moontear flower growing from its chest and an unkillable figure shrouded in black voxels.
Right after the cutscene, A2 and his pod have a brief exchange. A2 says “Whoa. What’s that?” The pod replies “Unknown”. A2 then says “You’re useless.” (This conversation is a pretty good metaphor for where the community is right now.) sadfutago notes (opens in a 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 more details. Apparently, this footage was captured on a French-Canadian copy of the PS4 game that was never updated. Players are now rushing to try out various versions of the game to retrace sadfutago’s footsteps and see if they can open this secret door.
“So far we haven’t found any evidence in assets that this exists OTHER than the tower itself from the late game,” modder xxk_ notes in a reddit post (opens in a new tab). xxk_ adds that “if this is a mod, it would be the first time anyone has done something like this, and NO ONE else knows how to make custom doors like the ones seen in the video – it would be a relatively HUGE task for one person to do.” will achieve”. with several advances in modding”.
Meanwhile, Nier Automata producer Yosuke Saito has been tweeting. He first sent a cheep (opens in a new tab) in English saying “eternal mystery”. Then one in Japanese, translated by aitaikimochi (opens in a new tab), to say “This looks like something Yoko Taro would do. Lol.” Then came a self-translated cheep (opens in a new tab) saying “First of all, calm down and make a reservation here”, pointing to a link for pre-orders of Nier Automata’s Next Switch Port.
On that last point, some fans are more and more convinced (opens in a 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 of drawing public interest.
Yet each new possibility seems just as strange as the last, and whatever the truth may be, it’s still fascinating to watch the story unfold.
source story: A Nier Automata player stumbled upon what appears to be a never-before-seen secret door, and the sudden reveal has the community “in shambles.”
A month ago, a Reddit user called sadfutago made a post (opens in a new tab) asking “how to access the church?” Apparently, this player had opened a door in Copy Town that led inside a church-style building and was trying to figure out how to get back in. The problem was that, as far as the rest of the community was concerned, there was no such door.
Shortly thereafter, sadfutago provided a handful of screenshots (opens in a new tab) and a short video (opens in a new tab) showing the way to the mysterious door. Some members of the community suspected a fake and pointed to the fact that the clip ended right after the door was opened. At that point, sadfutago replied, “I didn’t want to record too much because my mom said not to take up space.”
Nothing else happened for a month, until today, when sadfutago posted a longer clip (opens in a new tab) showing off what lies beyond the gate, including custom assets and animations that seem unprecedented elsewhere in the game.
Someone randomly posted a video on the Nier Automata subreddit showing them finding a secret room in Copy City. So far no one else has figured out how they managed to make this secret door appear. Literally 1 person on earth has accessed this room and we are blown away pic.twitter.com/g7W4JxiNDgJuly 25, 2022
As a modder and dataminer Lance McDonald puts it (opens in a new tab)“The community is in shambles by this discovery.”
Members of the Nier Automata modding community say that this area is unlikely to have been created through mods, as new maps complete with unique animations are far beyond what modder tools are capable of. build right now.
That leaves us with three possibilities. Is someone pulling an elaborate prank by creating a Nier Automata mod way beyond what other modders have made possible, making an even more elaborate prank by perfectly animating a fake gameplay video, or is this door really a new discovery that somehow way has gone unnoticed in the five years since the game was released. Never mind the truth, it is a remarkable mystery.
Nier Automata is on its way to Switch in October, if you’re looking for a way to mine undiscovered mysteries on the go.
