Multi-route ABCDE structure
Nier: Automata's marketing line was "26 endings." That's misleading. There are 5 main endings (A through E) plus 21 joke endings triggered by deliberately failing. The five main endings form a single intended sequence, and only one of them, E, is the ending of the game.
The structure is the load-bearing trick of Nier: Automata's design.
The route sequence
| Route | Protagonist | Time | What's actually different |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | 2B (combat android) | ~12h | First playthrough. Open world, main story arc. Credits roll. |
| B | 9S (scanner android) | ~10h | Same content as Route A, but from 9S's POV. Adds: hacking minigame replaces some combat encounters; cutscenes you didn't see in A; new dialogue; the same world feels different because 9S can read things 2B couldn't. |
| C / D | 2B → A2 (rogue android) / 9S | ~6h each branch | New content. Branches at a critical decision; one path produces Ending C, the other Ending D. Both are required to unlock E. |
| E | 2B + 9S + A2 (the meta-protagonist: you) | ~30 min | Bullet-hell credits sequence. Network-supported. Save-deletion prompt. The ending. |
So the canonical "complete" experience is A → B → C → D → E, in that order, ~25–30h total.
Route B is the load-bearing trick
If routes B/C/D were just unlock cutscenes after Ending A, the game would be a normal action-RPG. It's not. Route B re-runs Route A's story, but the game trusts you've seen it. Specifically:
- Cutscenes you've already seen are skippable with a button hold (a feature added because Yoko Taro knew the structure required it).
- Encounters are remixed for 9S's verbs. 9S has weaker melee but a hacking ability that turns some enemies into one-shot puzzles. The same boss is differently shaped.
- Information you didn't have in Route A is revealed. A pivotal cutscene that played as one character's tragedy in A becomes a duet in B with 9S's reaction.
This is not a New Game+. It is the second half of Act 1, designed and budgeted as a separate playthrough with shared assets. Yoko Taro's Drakengard 1 used the same structure; he describes it as a way to get more story out of a fixed budget.
"The route system was, well, that was a product of our budget from Square Enix. We couldn't really make all that much content … we ended up trying to make those route shifts and try to use the same content as much as possible."
, Yoko Taro, 2023 interview
The constraint became the design.
Routes C/D split: and why both are required
After 9S's run ends, the game proceeds into new content. At a structural climax, the player is asked to commit to one of two protagonists for a final confrontation: 2B or 9S (the prompt is in-fiction, framed as A2's choice). One leads to Ending C, the other to Ending D.
Picking C does not lock out D. After Ending C, the game prompts the player to start route D from the same decision point. The endings are branching, not exclusive. Both must be seen for Ending E to unlock.
This is late-introduced-mechanics operating at the route-structure layer: Automata teaches the player that an ending is just a chapter break by re-using the credits sequence as a chapter header five times.
What the player learns about their relationship to the game
The structural argument made by ABCDE is something like:
- After route A, you think you understand the story.
- Route B reveals that your interpretation was incomplete in important ways. A cutscene you read as "2B betrays a comrade out of duty" reads as "2B is forced to repeatedly do this" once you see 9S's data logs.
- Routes C/D destabilise the cast: your favourite character's perspective may not be available, and you have to play someone else.
- Ending E asks: now that you've done all that work, will you give it up?
This works because the game enforces the rereading. If routes B/C/D were optional epilogue DLC, the structural trick collapses. The reread is mandatory. So is the new perspective.
What this teaches
- Replay can be required, not optional, if you budget it as content. Most games treat replay as bonus mode. Yoko Taro budgets it as Act 2.
- A structural twist must be enforced by the systems, not just promised by the writing. Ending A reads as a complete story unless you keep playing. The game's "Continue" prompt is the entire device.
- Reusing assets is not cheap if you re-author them. Route B uses Route A's environments, encounter layouts, and many cutscenes, but every encounter is re-paced, every cutscene is re-edited, and 9S's hacking turns combat into something else. Reuse-as-frame; new-as-content.
- Skip features earn their keep when route structure is non-linear. Yoko Taro's team explicitly added cutscene-skip with full voice-acting context-aware skipping because the structure required it. If you're going to make players watch the same scene from multiple angles, give them the skip button. Don't take it personally when they use it.
Patterns this exemplifies
multi-route-replay: the game requires replay to reach the canonical ending. Uncurated; Yoko Taro's other works (Drakengard, the 2010 Nier) follow the same template, but they aren't yet in this knowledge base.late-introduced-mechanics: 9S's hacking, A2's berserk mode, and most of the philosophical reveals all arrive after Ending A. The first 12 hours are the tutorial.