The NieR Automata community is in ebullition after Reddit user sadfutago shared a video of a brand new area undiscovered till now, despite the game being out for five years now. On July 26, sadfutago shared another video accessing the area, making it clear this wasn’t faked.
Long story short, the most logical explanation as of now is that this area was only included in certain original PS4 versions of the game. Oli White, one of the game’s reviewers who played NieR Automata pre-release, remembered accessing the area as well.
The second video, meanwhile, is longer and shows sadfutago reaching through the secret door, passing through the eerie corridor and reaching the undiscovered area, a church. The location is introduced with a short-cutscene when A2 enters it, most notably focusing on a black blob-like matter found near the church’s altar. This also triggers a short dialogue. Several fans pointed out that the dialogue is in the final game but used in another area, making it clear that this church area is not in the current version of the game. Check out the video below.
Sadfutago Drops New Video Of The Undiscovered Church Area in NieR Automata
This is an unprecedented discovery and as far as I know, no one in the Japanese NieR Automata community pointed out the existence of that area either. In the past, Yoko Taro also mentioned that NieR Automata had one more secret no one had found. That secret, a cheat code that sends you from the game’s prologue to the true ending, was later found by Lance McDonald and Yoko Taro confirmed it as being the final secret he was talking about.
During the NieR Automata 5th anniversary stream on June 20, 2025, Yoko Taro and the game’s staff also explained in detail why they included that cheat code in the first place. Make sure to check out oursummary of the livestream for the details. In any case, the point is Yoko Taro and the development team didn’t have this church area in mind when speaking of the game’s last secret. Making it even more likely this is cut content.Another Reddit threadsummarizing everything we know so far is also regularly updated by the NieR Automata modding Discord community.
NieR Automata also has ananime adaptation in the works, but no details were shared yet. We don’t even know if it will adapt the game’s story, the stage plays' story or something else entirely. But I’m personally expecting the anime to have some surprises in store. NieR Automata is also coming to Nintendo Switch on October 6.
NieR series producer Yosuke Saito reacted to the news, hetweeted"Feels like something Yoko Taro would do lol" and advertised the upcoming Switch port.
July 29 Update
The NieR Automata modding community Discord including Lance McDonald have bothexplainedwhy this cannot be cut content. Meanwhile, Sadfutago droppedmore videos and screenshotson Reddit, with several references to Drag-on Dragoon 3 (Drakengard 3), and shared the link to a Twitch channel:ze34_zinnia. The message sharing the Twitch channel also mentioned in an awkward mix of English and Japanese that a stream will start in 3 hours (3 AM EST) and how this is neither an ARG nor an official thing, insinuating it’s a mod. No one has a clear answer yet though, and the only thing we can do is wait.
Update: It Was A Mod
The Twitch stream revealed it was all a teaser for upcoming modding tools. Three fans made it: map design by DevolasRevenge, blender tools Woeful_Wolf, and scripting tools by RaiderB. The stream also included several messages, thanking the fans and fellow modders who put in an incredible amount of time looking for answers: Lance, Inculta, Grojdg, Jaynoo, Seek, Nyori, Baal, Shinobi, Izalith, BlueFalcon, MC, and Immyneedscake. The trio also apologized for the confusion they caused, mentioning they didn’t expect things to get this big and only wanted it to last for a few days.
