Nier: automaton game-breaking cheat discovered almost four years after launch

Nier: Automata is a very strange game, with multiple “endings” needed to really see its final ending and some of its content really repeated from a different perspective on the character. It all comes together to deliver one of the most memorable conclusions in video games, but a smart player has managed to figure out a way to let you skip almost all of it. We’re not exactly sure because you would like, but apparently it is possible.

Main spoilers for Nier: Automata to follow!

After unlocking the final “E” in Nier: Automata, you are presented with a final credit sequence that shows the saved data of other players helping you in a retro shooting sequence to defeat the text itself. Completing this gives you the chance to sacrifice your own saved data – thereby erasing all your progress – to give another player a chance to win the game as well. This is where Twitter user Lance McDonald comes in.

McDonald did not fully detail the inputs needed to activate the cheat, but promised that a full video will come soon. In the teaser above, it shows that you must kill the first game boss, who is at the end of an action sequence necessary to open the game. After that, he goes to the back of the arena, makes a few jumps and has the option to sacrifice his saved data without playing the rest of the game.

This is the “final secret” of the game that the developers teased several years ago, that the series official Twitter account for Japan revealed right after it was posted. Nier: Automata has more than 20 endings, most of them being jokes, and five are needed to see the real conclusion. The game’s director, Yoko Taro, appeared to confirm the hoax with a response of his own on January 3.

The predecessor of Nier: Automata, Nier: Replicant, is receiving a remastered and remastered version called Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139 … on April 23. The game will be released for PS4, Xbox One and PC, and features more reworked combat similar to the automaton.