Nier Automata front-loads its most subversive moment: the first time you die in the opening sequence, the game ends and rolls full credits. Not a game over screen. Actual credits, complete with staff names.
This is not a bug. Yoko Taro designed it as a message: the game has no interest in protecting you from failure, and it has no interest in convention. The credits reappear with slight variations on subsequent deaths.
The game’s five canonical endings each unlock a piece of the true picture. Route A and B cover the same events from different perspectives. Route C introduces the real antagonist. Route D reveals the price of victory. Route E — the final ending — asks other players online to help you through it.
When you reach Ending E, the game asks you to sacrifice your save data to send assistance to another player. Thousands of players who had completed the game did so, erasing their playthroughs to help strangers they would never meet. The mechanic is optional but almost universally accepted. Automata turned save deletion into an act of community.
The detail work the devs put into areas most players never visit is what separates great games from good ones.
I’ve put 200 hours into this game and never caught this. The developers really reward the obsessive players.