Nier: Automata's final secret has been discovered
It's the real deal
Nier: Automata is a secretive enough game already, I gather, what with its multiple endings and unpredictable story and all. Apparently there's still been one pesky secret to uncover, as teased by the developers themselves, which one clever player has finally managed to uncover after hours of work. 2B officially has nothing left to hide.
Back in 2018, Platinum Games revealed in an interview (translated by Gematsu) that there was still a final secret hiding in Nier: Automata that they wouldn't reveal. Years later, it's finally been uncovered by Lance McDonald who has managed to reverse engineer the input for a particularly handy command. It's not a glitch, McDonald explains, but a proper cheat code programmed into the game.
In the video above, McDonald explains that there is a precise location and sequence of buttons you'll need to execute in order to pull the cheat off, along with some hints on how to do it successfully as it can be a bit tricky. Do beware, it sounds like you're effectively spoiling the end of the game for yourself since this command skips over the entire thing.
Normally, McDonald says you'd have to complete Nier multiple times to unlock some handy functions on the start screen such as the chapter select option, a debug mode, and a debug room, and an in game trophy store. With this cheat code in hand, you can skip directly from the game's first boss fight to a post credits scene. Back at the start screen, you'll have access to these new functions.
Apparently this is the real deal. Nier director Yoko Taro responded to the find on Twitter by noting that it occured three years and ten months after the game's launch while Nier's official account confirmed it as well.
They say that the final secret has indeed been discovered, but if I know anything about modders, tinkerers, and speedrunners, this likely isn't actually the last morsel of knowledge that they'll wring out of Automata. It's the last secret the developers know about, maybe, but there's always more to uncover.