Fans of NieR: Automata, an action RPG developed by PlatinumGames, have been roiled by a freshly unearthed mystery - even though the "final" mystery was officially solved two years ago. This new conundrum was quietly introduced a month ago, when a player asked for help for a friend to get to an inaccessible secret church, and only recently has a video of the hidden location stirred up a frenzy.
The NieR: Automata final ending skip cheat took four years to find, and was confirmed by the game's writer and director, Yoko Taro, to be the game's final mystery. The cheat takes the player to the finale of Ending E, where they are asked to sacrifice their save data and send it to another player in order to save that player. While fans were bemused by the purpose of a cheat that skips almost the entirety of the game, producer Yosuke Saito revealed that the very first person who reached the so-called True Ending was actually saved by data that PlatinumGames’ staff ed with that code, because otherwise there would be no player data on the servers to begin with, and the very first player to reach the ending wouldn't be saved by the data from other players because it wouldn't exist.
This new, month-old mystery for NieR: Automata, which released in 2017, remains unresolved because writer Yoko Taro isn’t giving any hints one way or the other about the legitimacy of the discovery, and other players can’t replicate the conditions or find the secret church that's been revealed through multiple Reddit posts by sadfutago (a chronicle of the strange saga has also been delineated by Reddit Angzt). No one is able or willing to corroborate sadfutago’s claim, and while the possibility of NieR: Automata mods has been raised, others assert that no mods have the power to edit map files. People are questioning whether or not sadfutago's video is an elaborate, genius-level hoax, or an elaborate, genius-level marketing ploy by PlatinumGames in anticipation of the game's release on the Nintendo Switch this October.
NieR: Automata's Creators Are Suspiciously Avoiding The Mystery
Most questions and suspicions are focused around the person and motivation of sadfutago themself, who many believe is just a resourceful fan of NieR: Automata and its storytelling wanting to create an interesting hoax. The Reddit 's post history begins one month ago with this discovery and covers nothing else. People even take their name to be relevant, as "futago" translates to "twins" in Japanese, and twins have a significant relevance to Nier: Automata. There is speculation that sadfutago is in cahoots with PlatinumGames and this discovery is some sort of devious marketing strategy. It doesn't help that Yoko Taro tweeted a tongue-in-cheek reply to players begging for answers, or that Yosuke Saito, the game's producer, acknowledged the footage then tweeted a promotional image of NieR: Automata, the End of YoRHa Edition for the Nintendo Switch.
Whether or not PlatinumGames and its penchant for hidden game mechanics is responsible, or if sadfutago's discovery is legit or a hoax, the studio will likely capitalize on the free press that this fervor is generating. It occurred at an opportune time, with only months left until the Nintendo Switch version is released. With any luck, players of NieR: Automata won't have to wait another four years for the answer to this new mystery, but given the track record of Yoko Taro, they really shouldn't expect any less.
Sources: sadfutago/Reddit, Angzt/Reddit, Yoko Taro/Twitter, Yosuke Saito/Twitter
