NieR: Automata update creates problems with English text

After going through some “teething” problems on PC, NieR: Automata seems to be steadily on its way to success. The game managed to reach over one million shipped units, combined with digital sales. However, updates can be tricky – patch 1.04 managed to create some “broken English”, and not of the linguistic kind.

What happened? Update 1.04 (just like the update 1.06 in the Japanese version) managed to practically destroy interface messages in English. The options menu became unintelligible, and the only way to get around is by trial and error, or by photographic memory, if you are blessed with one. While waiting for the developer to patch the patch, fans have been hard at work at fixing the issue themselves. It is not a sure save, but it should help the majority of players. Mind the spoilers below!

The bug seems to happen mostly during 9S playthrough and during hacking, when the hacking attack is a part of the actual story and cannot be avoided. The actual in-game hacking somehow “hacks” the English menus and messages, making with pretty much impossible to work with. The funny bit is that other languages, French, Japanese, German and Spanish, have no such issues.

Onwards to the rescue. You will need a new save file on update 1.04 and you will have to do Ending Route A again. Of course, this workaround is not guaranteed to work, but there is a chance that the bug won’t happen on a fresh save. You are free to try it for yourself!

In the meantime, the official channels have nothing much to offer at this time. The developers are aware of the issue and working on solving it as we speak. And all this when NieR Automata reached its 1 million sales goal and planned to celebrate the achievement on April 17. Here’s to hoping they fix the annoying bug until then!