Nier Automata's secret church mystery was the result of unprecedented new modding tools

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The mod will soon be released for everyone to try

Nier Automata
(Image credit: Square Enix)

Nier Automata's ongoing church mystery has finally been revealed as an elaborate mod by the game's community.

In the last few hours, the Nier subreddit user who initially brought the secret church drama to life went live on Twitch, showing themselves running through the entire weird area. However, at the end of the stream, the area was revealed to be an elaborate mod, as indicated by the graphic screenshot below.

It turns out this whole deal has been an elaborate marketing stunt for a brand new Nier Automata mod. As you can see in the graphic above, the modding team plans to make all their in-engine tools public for the game's community to use as they please.

"Over the following days, we'll be releasing the new Blender addons and scripting tools. Completely open source. We have so much in store for you," writes the team behind the new mod. So, the whole secret church mystery was the work of modders after all, and it had the community completely hooked.

It'll be interesting to see just how elaborate and fleshed out the entire mod is for Nier Automata. The development team behind the mod plan on making the mod playable, so there's no doubt there'll be other secrets hiding among the demo that we haven't yet seen.

This also finally explains why we've seen assets from Nier Replicant pop up in the new area, alongside several Drakengard 3 assets more recently. The modders have reached back into the series' past for new items and objects to recruit for their demo, including the bird fountain from near the climax of the original game. The mystery surrounding the secret church might have finally been cracked, but who knows what other discoveries await us in the new mod. 

You can read up on our Nier Automata's secret church mystery explained feature for a full look back on all the wild events of the last week. 

Hirun Cryer
Hirun Cryer

Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.