VIDEOS have emerged online of a previously undiscovered area in Nier: Automata – and it baffled the community.
The area was dubbed ‘The Church’ by online communities and featured a large underground area found through a secret door.
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When players tried to replicate the door opening in their own games, they couldn’t, leaving many to believe it was a version exclusive area, which had later been patched out.
Inside were a number of cryptic items pointing to another game in the series, Nier:Replicant, and expanding on points of lore.
The strangest thing about the church was not only that no one else could find it, but that it was way beyond the current capabilities of those wishing to modify the game.
There was a boss fight, cutscenes, completely new geometry all in the style of Nier: Automata.
Speculation began about what it could be.
Some thought it was an area which was cut from the final build of the game.
Others believed that it was the game’s designer Yoko Taro himself, hoping to stir interest ahead of the Switch launch, or ahead of the announcement of a new project.
Yoko Taro fanned the flames of these rumours when he told his Twitter followers that the answer to the church was somewhere in his feed.
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However, the video makers have revealed what the church was all about.
On Twitch in a now deleted stream, which has already been re-uploaded several times, the three designers spoke about their mod.
The team was composed of a level designer called DevolasRevenge, a Blender model developer called Woeful_Wolf_, and a programmer named RaiderB.
After showing footage of the church, they introduced themselves with a statement.
It said: “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.”
They explained that the church is in fact a mod that they had developed using completely new tools that they designed.
The mod for the church was released immediately following the stream so players could see the area for themselves.
The mystery was created to promote the new modding tools the team created.
All of the tools which they developed will be released open source, which means that anyone can begin modding these impressive areas into Nier: Automata themselves.
Written by Georgina Young on behalf of GLHF.
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