The Nier: Automata community was gripped in one of its biggest mysteries yet–a strange and unexplained section of the game that was seemingly unexplored.
On Thursday, a reddit user by the name of sadfutago posted images and videos of the bizarre, unexplored parts of Nier: Automata. The areas included a church with messages throughout. The messages pointed to a Twitch account that streamed more footage of the strange church, a new boss battle, and more areas.
Turns out, it wasn’t so mysterious after all. In fact, the Nier: Automata church was the product of the work of several modders who took months to design these seemingly unexplored zones and create a hoax that would storm the internet and Nier: Automata community for days.
Three modders, DevolasRevenge, Woeful_Wolf, and RaiderB explained that they designed the entire unexplored area. Their work was so convincing, a majority believed that it was the work of PlatinumGames or Square Enix.
DevloasRevenge was credited with designing the map and said this about the whole situation: “Whether you expected this outcome or not, I hope you enjoyed the impact. It was never meant to blow up this big, but just to confuse a few people on Twitter lol.”
The modders stated that “everything we have shared has been completely in-game. No editing was used. We have been loving all the discussions and theories–it has been an amazing journey. It has been inspiring to see the community come together after so many years, it has made all the hard work well worth it.”
The modders did apologize for misleading fans, stating that the whole thing was just meant to trick players into beleiving that the church was either cut content or some undiscovered spot, but not something like an alternate reality game (ARG) or marketing stunt. The group clarified that they “weren’t trying to impersonate Yoko Taro.”
The team did say that they would be releasing the 3D model add-ons for Blender and the scripting tools that they used soon for public use, however.
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Zainah Yousef
Zainah Yousef is the author of The Fallen Age Saga and specializes in gaming, social media advice, and reviews. She's been writing all her life and she probably won't stop anytime soon.
