Sources

Dev interviews

• Yoko Taro / GamesRadar (2023, paywalled at Famitsu, summarised): "The route system was, well, that was a product of our budget from Square Enix." The clearest statement that multi-route was a constraint, not a vision. GamesRadar summary
• Yoko Taro / Game Informer (2017): Long-form interview around Western launch. "I don't think I'll have a happy ending. … This is the first time I've been able to do this kind of happy ending." Essential context for Ending E. Game Informer
• Yoko Taro, Yosuke Saito, Keiichi Okabe / SuperJump Magazine: Switch re-release interview, with discussion of the score's structural role and the layered-endings philosophy. SuperJump Magazine
• Yoko Taro / Siliconera: "I structure my endings from A to E … each one reveals a new layer of something." Explicit framing of the route system as cumulative rereading. Siliconera, varied endings
• Yoko Taro, Takahisa Taura, Keiichi Okabe / Game Informer (2019): Joint interview on PlatinumGames partnership, design philosophies, sad endings, Evangelion. The clearest record of Yoko Taro's division-of-labour with Platinum. Game Informer 2019
• Yoko Taro / PlayStation LifeStyle (2018): One-year-after-release retrospective. Discussion of ending reception and violence in games. PlayStation LifeStyle

Wikis & references

• Nier: Automata wiki (Fextralife): exhaustive item, weapon, chip, quest, and ending coverage. The standard online reference.
• Weapon Story page (Fextralife): the four-paragraph weapon stories, grouped by weapon. The primary source for the weapon stories page.
• The Ark: Nier: Automata Lore, fan-curated lore wiki with deeper analysis of weapon-story themes.
• NieR Wiki (Fandom): Endings, full ending list including the 21 joke endings.

Reception & critical analysis

• Kotaku: There's a Difficult Decision At The End of Nier: Automata, the canonical write-up of the Ending E save-deletion prompt for English-language press.
• With A Terrible Fate: The Second Impact of NieR: Automata's Ending E, long-form critical analysis of Ending E's network mechanic and its relationship to grief.
• Game Rant: Weapon Stories as Missed Opportunity for Other RPGs, argues for the weapon-story-as-installments technique as broadly applicable.
• Siliconera: Nier: Automata Tells Everyone's Stories, analysis of the weapon-story narrative voice.
• Pixel a Day: Nier: Automata Critique transcript, long-form video-essay transcript covering the route structure, themes, and mechanical resonance.

Visual reference

• Game UI Database: Nier: Automata (id 150), the source for every screenshot under docs/public/images/nier-automata/ (title screens, chip menus, weapon detail views, map UI, in-combat HUD), with full provenance in that folder's CREDITS.md.

Community discussion (background colour)

• Steam Community: Did you delete your save data? (spoiler thread), community reaction to the Ending E save prompt. Useful for the rough split of player choices.
• GameFAQs: Ending E: Saves… Does Not Make Sense, players debating whether to delete; representative of the moment-of-decision discussion.