Square Enix held on February 23 a special 5th anniversary stream for NieR: Automata, with a talk show, a musical quiz, several games with the viewers, some big announcements and a major reveal from Yoko Taro, explaining why the game has a cheat code. Note that this story contains spoilers for the True Ending of NieR: Automata.

The “Let’s Chi~ll And Celebrate NieR: Automata‘s 5th Anniversary” stream, happened on February 23 with:

  • NieR producer at Square Enix Yosuke Saito
  • Creative director Yoko Taro
  • NieR Automata senior game designer at PlatinumGames Takahisa Taura
  • NieR composer Keiichi Okabe

The first part of the stream, available on YouTube, was divided into several segments, most notably with a retrospective at the beginning, and an announcements segment at the end.

The second part of the anniversary stream was only available for those with a Niconico premium account, and that's where Yoko Taro made a surprising reveal. The stream lasted 3 hours and 32 minutes in total.

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NieR: Automata 5th anniversary stream first part

First we went through a retrospective of all the CDs, stage plays, books and story-related merch released since NieR: Automata first came out on February 23, 2017.

Next, we had a pretty fun music quiz with the NieR: Automata OST. Fans watching the stream on Nico Nico Douga could give their answers via the site's built-in poll feature. It was pretty fun and full of troll moments seeing sometimes none of the answers available were correct.

The last segment focused on announcements. With NieR Automata getting collab events with PUBG New State Mobile and Babylon's Fall. New merch was announced as well, and the final "one more thing" was the anime announcement trailer. You can watch the first half of the stream and the NieR: Automata x Babylon's Fall collab trailer below.

NieR: Automata 5th anniversary stream second part

The second part of the stream, which could only be watched on Niconico with a premium account, had another talk show and Q&A. The same staff members from the 1st part were joined by Kaoru Akiyama, the seiyuu of Pod 153.

This part also had the staff playing several built-in Niconico games with the fans, including Rock-Paper-Scissors and Red Light/Green Light, which was called "Squid Game" several times by Yoko Taro. It was pretty fun.

Last but not least, near the end of the stream, Takahisa Taura booted NieR: Automata, and played the prologue. After beating Marx, Takahisa Taura did the cheat code which was discovered by Lance McDonald in January 2021. Taura did the code without even pausing the game, which was pretty cool to see.

I assume anyone reading this already cleared NieR: Automata themselves, but the cheat code sends you at the end of Ending E, right before you're asked if you wish to delete your save data and send it to save another player.

Yosuke Saito thought it was the perfect moment to explain why they included this cheat code in NieR: Automata, so he asked Yoko Taro to explain what happened. I translated the staff's hilarious discussion below:

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Yoko Taro explains why NieR: Automata has a secret cheat code which sends players to the end of the True Ending

Yoko Taro: "You can only clear the shoot 'em up section of the ending thanks to other players' data, right? We realized in the final stages of development that the first person to reach the True Ending wouldn't have anyone helping them. And no one would ever be able to finish the game."

Yosuke Saito: "Yeah, since there would be no player data on the servers in the first place (laughs)."

Takahisa Taura: "We only realized that right at the end of the game's development (laughs)."

Yoko Taro: "And we could only upload data by using the commercial version of the game. Because the development build version doesn't connect to Sony's servers. Taura and the other developers were discussing adding the dummy data we used during development to the final game."

Takahisa Taura: "But Yoko Taro said that's bullshit and would completely ruin the ending."

Yoko Taro: "Yeah, it wouldn't be the same if it's a not a real person saving you, so we didn't include that dummy data in the final game."

The first data was uploaded by PlatinumGames' staff using the cheat code

Yosuke Saito: "So the very first person who got the True Ending was actually saved by data that PlatinumGames' staff uploaded with that code. We might have used a cheat to get it there, but it's still real people's data."

Takahisa Taura: "Right at midnight on release date, we all frantically started the game, played the prologue, entered the code, and uploaded our data (laughs)."

Yoko Taro: "Because those who got the game before release date couldn't finish the True Ending either. So we had to save them. It was my first time seeing so many members of a development team gather together on a game's release night."

Yosuke Saito: "And there was a live stream planned the night after, for the game's release. So things were pretty hectic. It definitely was a NieR-like situation."

Yoko Taro: "It's one of my best memories ever. But yeah that's why we added that cheat code. Instead of revealing all this in a interview like normal developers, we ended up sharing this in a Niconico premium stream (laughs). "

That's it for our NieR: Automata 5th anniversary stream summary. Tell me your thoughts in the comments below! You can also reach me via Twitter @A_iyane07.