NieR: Automata's Mysterious Church Ended Up Being the Work of Modders After All

Last week we reported on the fascinating tale of a mysterious church in NieR: Automata that was previously thought to be cut content, an elaborate ARG heralding new content, a stunt to hype the upcoming Switch port of the game, or just an incredibly well-kept secret.

Well, as it turns out, the whole thing was the work of modders, albeit using an incredible level of modification that was previously thought to be impossible. Modders DevolasRevenge, Woeful_Wolf, and RaiderB masterminded the entire affair, which was revealed via a thank you message at the end of a recent Twitch stream.

So, kind of an anticlimactic end to such an enigmatic story, but it's pretty incredible the effect the story had on the gaming community, capturing our attention and imaginations for a few blessed days. The modding team have promised to release the tools they used on an open source basis, which means we can expect to see some incredible work in this space in the coming months and years.

In addition, they apologised for the deception, never expecting the situation to blow up in the way it had, even managing to catch the attention of the game's creator, Yoko Taro, in the process.

What do you think of this entire saga? How long do you think it will be before you can play through all of NieR: Automata as the cat from Stray? Let us know in the comments section below.