A new secret cheat code has been found in Nier: Automata that lets players skip the entire game after only beating the first boss. This new discovery has also been confirmed to be the “final secret” that the game’s developers teased a few years ago.
Released back in 2017, Nier: Automata is a game with over a dozen different endings and lots of secrets. The only way to truly beat the game is to replay it multiple times, getting different endings and stories along the way. However, someone discovered a secret cheat code that lets you skip all that and jump right to the end of the game after beating the first boss.
—Also, beware of spoilers beyond this point—
In Nier: Automata, once you have unlocked ending E, you play through a tough arcade shooter sequence where you are tasked with destroying the credits of the very game. Once you beat this, you can sacrifice your save data to help other players beat this ending. This isn’t a joke either. Once you agree to give up your data, you lose all of your progress. To reach this point takes some time though and you’ll have to beat the game multiple times.
That’s where this new cheat code comes in handy, as it lets you skip all that and instead lets you sacrifice your save data right after beating the first boss in Nier: Automata.
Popular modder and dataminer Lance McDonald discovered this wild secret, which isn’t a glitch, but is instead an actual cheat code programmed into the game.
McDonald didn’t fully explain what’s going on in the above video, but it shows him beating the first boss, and then after that, he heads to some barrels and begins to input the code. Eventually, the screen fades to black and Nier lets you then sacrifice your save data.
According to McDonald, it took him “hundreds of hours” of reverse-engineering the game’s code and engine to find this final cheat code. And shortly after sharing his discovery, the game’s director Yoko Taro seemed to confirm that this was indeed the final secret.
The Japanese Nier Twitter account also confirmed this was indeed the final secret. “It seems that the last secret has been discovered.”
McDonald, who has a history of finding and creating cool things like this, says he will release a full video about the new game-skipping cheat code soon. Until then, you can go beat the first boss in Nier: Automata and then head to those barrels and try to discover the code yourself.