An intrepid modder has discovered Nier Automata’s “final secret”: a cheat code.
Lance McDonald, who Eurogamer has covered multiple times for his varied work on the likes of P.T. and Bloodborne, found a cheat code in the early 2017 release that lets you skip to the last ending immediately after killing the first boss and unlock the bonus modes.
Over the weekend, the English language Nier Twitter account congratulated McDonald for the discovery, and Nier Automata development chief Yoko Taro, who two years ago had teased there was still one final secret no-one had yet found in the game, shared the work, pointing out it took three years and 10 months for the cheat code to be discovered.
( NieR:Automata Spoilers )
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3 years 10 months.
（◎血◎）RT: @manfightdragon
I found a cheat code in NieR Automata (snip) https://t.co/2LeNlBguLi— yokotaro (@yokotaro) January 3, 2021
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In a video, below, McDonald explains how his hunt began after he spotted engine code, listed as CheatCommandManager, that wasn’t used in-game. McDonald then used his familiarity with the game to reverse engineer the final secret from there, working out where to stand in-game and what to input.
Discovering NieR Automata’s Final Secret – Cheat Code Reverse Engineering – Secret Ending Trigger Watch on YouTube
The cheat code can only be entered while standing in one particular place at one specific moment in the game, but it’s worth doing: it unlocks Chapter Select, Debug Mode, the Debug Room and the Trophy Shop, as well as a few other items. This saves the player from having to complete three playthroughs of the game in order to unlock these features.