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On Monday, Redditor xxk_ of the Nier: Automata modding community had this to say about the secret church that had befuddled the 5-year-old game's fandom:
"If this is a mod this would be the first time anyone has done something like this, and NOBODY else knows how to make custom doors like seen in the video -- it would be a relatively IMMENSE undertaking for a single individual to accomplish with various modding breakthroughs."
Turns out, that's basically exactly what happened.
Over the past week, the Nier: Automata fandom has been up in arms over the supposed discovery of a secret area posted by one Redditor sadfutago. The area, dubbed the "secret church" by the community, supposedly featured a hitherto-unseen cutscene, a treasure chest and some sly references to other Platinum games. What could have been a neat discovery of an easter egg uncovered years after the game's release instead created a small frenzy because no one could replicate what sadfutago had done.
This led to a debate about whether the "secret church" was a hoax, and if it was, for what purpose it was created. The game's modding community had essentially ruled out, or at least deemed it very unlikely, that the "secret church" was the work of modders, which sparked theories that the game's enigmatic director Yoko Taro was behind it, perhaps as a marketing ploy for the game's October release on the Nintendo Switch. Taro certainly didn't deny this possibility on his Twitter account, bringing the frenzy to a fever pitch.
This climaxed at a Twitch stream in which "sadfutago" went through the Secret Church area before the people behind the account finally revealed that the area was, in fact, part of a mod.
Modders DevolasRevenge, Woeful_Wolf, and RaiderB admitted during the stream that they had been working on a Nier: Automata mod for years and decided to promote it ARG-style by pretending they were "sadfutago," a mysterious Redditor who just wanted to know what was up with this weird area he'd found in his game.
The stream ended with a very heartfelt thankyou to the community, highlighting a lot of the best hype moments across social media and mainstream news websites, and a light hearted apology for any potential frustration along the way.
— Lance McDonald (@manfightdragon) July 29, 2022
— Lance McDonald (@manfightdragon) July 29, 2022
Faced with the truth at last, the Nier: Automata community was more thankful that they were taken on an incredible journey than frustrated that they were hoodwinked. At the time of writing, most of the hot content on the Nier: Automata subreddit is people expressing that even though they were fooled, they were thrilled that a cool mod for the game was coming and that the perpetrators orchestrated an exciting ARG for over a month.
With the era of the "Secret Church" officially over, many online celebrated the meme-filled journey it inspired.
at last, the final edit of the absolute state of the nier automata modding discord and their mystery church adventures pic.twitter.com/4DTtPGzdKv
— hulkenstein😈|| going hard on this nier shit (@hulkenstein01) July 29, 2022
the thing about the Nier church thing is that it doesn't really matter if it's a real thing or something fan made. it's been so long since we had a good old fashioned carny mystery in games that it's just nice to see people going apeshit for something fun for once.
— Yo La Waingro (@alex_navarro) July 29, 2022
thoughts on the Nier Automata secret church/mod craze:
1. people love well hidden secrets/mysteries, even when fake (like the bugged Elden Ring wall that took 50 hits to open)
2. more devs should put real secrets in their games like this
3. the modders did an incredible job pic.twitter.com/B9tWhCy8Q4— Iron Pineapple (@IronPineapple_) July 29, 2022
NIER AUTOMATA CHURCH TURNED OUT TO BE AN ELABORATE CHAOTIC MOD ALL ALONG BUT HOLY SHIT WAS THIS WORTH THE RIDE 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/YzkDwPhQ9F
— ☆オードリーAudrey☆ (@aitaikimochi) July 29, 2022
Soon, Nier: Automata players will finally be able to enter the "Secret Church," as the mod team, hot off the success of an incredible viral marketing campaign, will release the mod over the next few days.
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