A mysterious Nier: Automata secret door video that has been perplexing the anime game’s community has been revealed to the work of mods. The video, which appeared to show protagonist A2 entering a mysterious church area in the Copied City, is viral marketing for a hefty set of fan-designed mod tools that the team showcased in a short Twitch stream.
The developers initially teased the video out under the guise of a random user who had accidentally stumbled across the secret door. While there was certainly speculation that the content could be the result of a mod, the complexity of the room and the scripting involved were beyond what had been seen among the Nier: Automata mod community. This led to hypotheses that perhaps the room was part of viral marketing for the recently-released Switch version of Nier: Automata, for a Drakengard 3 remake, or even for a new game.
This speculation was further fueled by the game’s producer Yosuke Saito, who tweeted about the initial video with the simple comment, “Eternal mystery,” and followed up suggesting that it was something the game’s creator Yoko Taro might do. Yoko Taro himself also referenced the video obliquely, without any specific confirmation or denial as to its nature.
Things finally came to a head with a Twitch stream from the original source, which showcases additional footage including 9S wandering around some large, spooky environments and battling several giant robots using his hacking skills. They then transition to a screen stating that, “Everything we have shared has been completely in-game, no editing was used.”
The three designers – DevolasRevenge, Woeful_Wolf, and RaiderB – say that they will be releasing the new Blender addons and scripting tools in open source format. They will also make the mod files used for the demonstration, meaning players will finally be able to walk through the secret door and visit the church for themselves. Finally, the team teases that more is to come, including a mod from RaiderB that is already prepared for release.
The Twitch stream in question wasn’t officially archived, but it was recorded and has since been posted to the game’s official subreddit – though please be warned that it includes an archive of the Twitch chat, which is decidedly NSFW.
While some will be disappointed to learn that this wasn’t an “official” secret, the huge advancement in mod tools is still very exciting. In the words of code hacking and secrets extraordinaire Lance McDonald, who discovered the final Nier Automata secret in 2021, the project is “the work of extremely talented modders doing things the community thought were not possible.” We’re looking forward to seeing what other cool projects come out of this.