Three years and ten months after its release, someone has finally found "Nier": the last secret of Automata. It was announced today by the discoverer, Lance McDonald, and confirmed seven hours later by series director Yoko Taro. The confirmation of the last secret was also reported by Nier's official account. Spoilers follow, but frankly, you literally have to dig into the game's code to discover this. Here is Yoko Taro's tweet, embedded with McDonald's tweet:

The final secret is the cheat code that runs after the first boss is defeated. It is a complex series of attacks, rolls, and moves in the vein of classic cheats, which must be performed while standing in a specific location. Once executed, the player is immediately sent to the "final" ending of the game's many endings, the user's saves are deleted, and the bonus game mode is unlocked. To be clear, this is not an exploit, but a cheat intentionally programmed into the game. When asked how he found it, Lance McDonald replied, "I spent hundreds of hours reverse engineering it."

Nier: Automata surprised critics and fans of the series upon its release with its wide popularity and complex narrative tricks. To date, it has sold more than 5 million copies. For more on its narrative legacy, read about how Nier Automata is a study in human suffering: how Automata's study of human weakness overcomes its own shortcomings.