NieR: Automata All Endings Explained, From A to E

The Tower rises above the ruins, marking the final confrontation between androids and machines.

If you have ever reached the credits of NieR: Automata and felt confused, relieved, heartbroken, or all three at once, you are not alone. Yoko Taro's masterpiece is famous for hiding its true story behind layers of replays and fake-out endings. This guide covers every major NieR Automata ending explained in full detail, from the deceptively simple Ending A all the way to the devastating Ending E. We will also touch on the 21 joke endings scattered throughout the game, because Yoko Taro never misses a chance to punish curious players.

NieR: Automata was released in 2017 by PlatinumGames and Square Enix, directed by the legendary Yoko Taro. It sold over 8 million copies worldwide and earned its place as one of the most important action RPGs of its generation. The game follows combat androids 2B, 9S, and A2 as they fight a proxy war against alien-built machines on a ruined Earth. But the real story only begins after you think it is over.

What makes NieR: Automata special is how it uses the act of replaying the game as a narrative device. Route A is not the full story. Route B is not the full story.

Even Route C only becomes complete when you choose between two heartbreaking endings and then sacrifice everything for a third. Let's break it all down.

What You Need to Know Before Route C

Before we dive into the major endings, here is some essential context. NieR: Automata is structured into three main routes. Route A follows 2B through the android war against the machines.

Route B replays those same events from the perspective of 9S, her scanner-class partner. Route C is entirely new content that picks up after a catastrophic event and splits the story between A2 and 9S.

The game's lore runs deep. Androids were created by humanity to fight the alien-made machine lifeforms that drove humans off Earth. YoRHa, the elite android unit, operates from a space station called the Bunker.

Their orders come from the Council of Humanity on the Moon. Every android carries a black box, a core component that keeps them fighting. Keep these details in mind, because the game systematically dismantles every single one of them.

There are 26 endings in total, labeled A through Z. Five of them are "real" endings that advance the plot. The other 21 are joke endings triggered by doing something absurd at the wrong moment. We will cover the five main endings first, then give you the full joke ending rundown.

The Machine Village, where Pascal's pacifist community tries to find meaning beyond war.

One more thing. NieR: Automata draws heavily from existentialist philosophy. Characters are named after real philosophers: Simone de Beauvoir becomes a machine obsessed with beauty, Jean-Paul (Sartre) is a pacifist machine child, and Pascal references Blaise Pascal's wager on the existence of God.

These are not easter eggs. They are the point. The game asks what it means to be alive, whether purpose must be given or can be created, and what happens when the answer to both questions is "nothing."

Ending A: The False Peace

Ending A is what most players encounter first. After roughly 15 to 20 hours, you will have fought through the desert, the amusement park, the forest kingdom, and the alien mothership. 2B and 9S discover a shocking truth: the aliens who created the machine lifeforms are already dead.

The machines killed their own creators long ago. This means the machine war has been running on autopilot, with no alien intelligence guiding it.

The final boss of Route A is Eve, the emotional counterpart to the machine network's logical Adam. After 2B kills Adam in the copied city, Eve absorbs the machine network's hatred and goes berserk. 2B and 9S fight him in a spectacular multi-phase battle that ends with Eve's destruction.

But 9S is infected by a logic virus during the fight, and 2B is forced to kill him to prevent total corruption. She strangles him with her bare hands.

The credits roll. It feels like an ending. But a title card appears: "This story is not yet over." And it is not.

Ending A is a deliberate misdirect. It presents a clean action-game conclusion, good guys win, bad guy dies, sacrifice is made. But every theme the game introduced remains unresolved.

What are the machines really after? Why does 9S keep getting killed and rebuilt? What is 2B hiding?

If you stopped here, you experienced maybe 30 percent of the actual story. Yoko Taro designed this ending to be satisfying enough that a casual player could walk away, while making it clear to attentive players that massive questions remain. The soundtrack during the final battle, "A Beautiful Song," swells with operatic intensity that masks the hollowness of this victory.

Everything feels heroic. Nothing has actually been resolved.

Many players put the game down after Ending A, believing they had seen the full picture. If you did that, go back. The game is practically begging you to.

Ending B: 9S's Truth

Route B replays the events of Route A from 9S's perspective. This is where many players expect repetition but instead find revelation. 9S is a Scanner-type android, and his hacking ability lets him access machine memories. Through these hacking sequences, you witness scenes that 2B never saw.

The most important revelation comes from the machine Adam. During their confrontation, Adam tells 9S the truth about humanity: they are extinct. They have been extinct for thousands of years.

The Council of Humanity on the Moon is a fabrication. The entire android war, every battle, every death, every resurrection, is built on a lie. YoRHa command knew this and chose to keep fighting because androids need a reason to exist.

2B Resin Lamp, NieR Automata . From $89

This reframes every single event in Route A. The android propaganda about "fighting for humanity" becomes a tragic institutional delusion. The machines killing their alien creators mirrors what happened to humanity. Both sides are orphaned children fighting a meaningless war because neither side can face the emptiness of stopping.

9S also discovers something troubling about 2B. Through hacked records, he finds evidence that 2B's real designation is not "Battler" but "Executioner." Her model number is 2E, and her classified mission is to kill 9S every time he gets too close to the truth. She has killed him dozens, possibly hundreds of times before.

Each time, his memory is wiped, and they start over. The neck-snap at the end of Route A was not a mercy kill. It was her job.

Ending B concludes at the same point as Ending A, with Eve's defeat. But now the credits feel different. You understand that 2B has been carrying this secret guilt for countless cycles.

You understand that the entire war is a performance. And you understand that Yoko Taro has been playing you just as YoRHa has been playing its soldiers.

Ending C: Meaningless Code (A2's Choice)

Route C begins immediately after Routes A and B, and it tears everything apart within the first hour. A massive machine assault destroys the YoRHa Bunker. A logic virus infects nearly every android on Earth. 2B herself becomes infected and, in one of the most devastating sequences in gaming, drags herself through the ruins while machines wearing the faces of dead androids close in around her.

A2 finds 2B in her final moments. 2B, knowing she is about to lose herself to the virus, asks A2 to kill her and take care of 9S. A2 absorbs 2B's memories through her sword and sets off on a solitary mission of revenge and purpose. Meanwhile, 9S witnesses 2B's death remotely and spirals into complete psychological collapse.

Route C splits between A2 and 9S. A2 encounters Pascal's peaceful machine village, where child machines learn fear for the first time, and then watches as those same children commit suicide out of terror. Pascal, shattered by the realization that teaching his children to fear was what killed them, begs A2 to either erase his memories or destroy him. There is no happy option.

9S becomes increasingly unhinged. He discovers the full scope of YoRHa's lies: the black boxes inside every android are made from machine cores. Androids and machines are the same technology.

The war was never between two species. It was a single intelligence fighting itself. 9S learns that YoRHa was designed to eventually be destroyed, and that 2B's true designation as an Executioner means the person he loved was built to betray him.

A2 Resin Lamp, NieR Automata . From $89

At the top of the Tower (the machine network's replacement for the destroyed Bunker), A2 and 9S meet for their final confrontation. 9S is consumed by rage and grief. He blames A2 for 2B's death, even though she was honoring 2B's last request. A2 knows the truth but cannot get through to him.

If you choose A2 in the final battle, you get Ending C, titled "meaningless [C]ode." A2 defeats 9S. In his final moment, she transfers 2B's memories to him so he can understand the truth: 2B loved him, and killing him over and over again was the source of her deepest pain. A2 then activates the Tower's self-destruct, sacrificing herself. 9S, now carrying 2B's memories, is left alive in the wreckage.

The word "meaningless" in the title refers to the existentialist concept of a universe without inherent purpose. A2's code, her programming, her designated role, is meaningless. But her choice to honor 2B's wish and show mercy to 9S is meaningful precisely because no one ordered her to do it.

She chose it. That is the point.

Ending D: Childhood's End (9S's Choice)

If you choose 9S instead of A2 in the final battle, you get Ending D, titled "[D]childhood's end." This is a reference to Arthur C. Clarke's novel about humanity's transcendence, and it is one of the bleakest endings in the game.

9S defeats A2. But there is no victory. He is infected with the logic virus, mentally shattered, and physically broken.

As A2 dies, she activates the Tower's ark launch sequence. The Tower was never a weapon aimed at the human server on the Moon. It was a spacecraft, designed by the machines to launch the collected memories and experiences of both machines and androids into deep space, hoping another civilization might find them.

9S, alone and dying, watches the ark launch into the sky. He has nothing left. Humanity is extinct.

YoRHa is destroyed. 2B is dead. The machines are scattered.

The only thing that survived is a digital archive of everyone's pain, joy, love, and suffering, hurtling into the void.

The title "Childhood's End" works on two levels. In Clarke's novel, humanity evolves beyond its physical form and joins a cosmic overmind. In NieR: Automata, the machines do something similar by transcending their physical existence and becoming pure data.

But 9S does not transcend. He is left behind. The childhood that ends is his innocence, his belief that fighting and loving and grieving meant something.

This ending is arguably the most nihilistic outcome in the game. 9S tried to cling to human emotions, and those emotions destroyed him. He loved 2B, and that love became obsession.

He wanted the truth, and the truth gave him nothing to hold onto. The ark sailing into space is beautiful and terrible in equal measure, a bottle tossed into a cosmic ocean by beings who know no one will ever read the message inside.

After seeing both Endings C and D, the game prepares its true finale. A message appears asking if you want to see the real ending. If you say yes, you enter Ending E.

Ending E: The Weight of the World (The Real Ending)

Ending E is why NieR: Automata became a legend. It is also the reason fans get emotional even years later when they hear the song "Weight of the World." This ending breaks the fourth wall, breaks the game, and asks you to make the most meaningful sacrifice in gaming history.

After viewing both C and D, the Pods (the small companion robots that follow 2B, 9S, and A2) begin speaking to each other during the credits. Pod 042 and Pod 153 question their orders. Their final directive was to delete all YoRHa data, including the personalities and memories of 2B, 9S, and A2. But the Pods hesitate.

Pod 153 asks: "A future is not given to you. It is something you must take for yourself." This line, a direct quote from the original NieR, becomes the thesis statement of the entire game. The Pods reject their programming. They choose to reconstruct the androids' data, to give 2B, 9S, and A2 another chance at life, even though nothing in their code tells them to.

NieR Automata Diorama Resin Lamp, 2B, 9S and A2 . From $89

Then the credits sequence begins, and it is a bullet-hell shooter. You control Pod 153, shooting at the names of the development team. The credits fight back.

It is absurdly difficult. You will die repeatedly. Each time, a message appears asking if you think games are silly, if you think this has no point.

The game is testing whether you will give up.

After enough deaths, offers of help begin appearing. These are messages from other real players who already completed Ending E and chose to sacrifice their save data to help strangers. Their messages scroll across the screen: "Don't give up." "I believe in you." "You are not alone." Suddenly, the bullets become manageable. You are backed by the combined firepower of players worldwide.

When you finally destroy the credits, Pod 042 asks you the final question: will you sacrifice your save data to help a stranger in the future? Delete your save file, every weapon, every level, every memory, so that someone you will never meet has a slightly easier time reaching this same moment. It is the ultimate expression of the game's philosophy.

Meaning is not given. You create it through sacrifice, through connection, through choosing to care about someone you have never met.

If you say yes, the game erases everything. Your save file, your system data, your records. The screen goes black.

And then the title screen appears, clean and fresh, as if you never played at all. But somewhere out there, another player struggling through the credits will see your message of encouragement, backed by your phantom firepower, and they will push through. That is Ending E.

That is NieR: Automata.

The 21 Joke Endings (A Through Z, Minus the Main Five)

Yoko Taro hid 21 additional endings throughout the game, each triggered by doing something absurd, reckless, or deliberately disobedient. They range from hilarious to surprisingly dark. Here is every joke ending and how to trigger it.

Ending F is called "mission [F]ailed." Simply die during the prologue. Since there is no save point until you complete the entire opening sequence on your first playthrough, dying here means starting completely over. The game cheerfully tells you that you failed.

Ending G is "[G]luttony." During the mission where you fish for machine parts, eat the mackerel instead of delivering it. 9S is horrified. Androids do not eat. The implications are uncomfortable.

Ending H stands for "[H]uman." Remove your OS chip. Every android can technically remove the chip that keeps them alive. The game warns you multiple times. If you do it anyway, you get a black screen and a disappointed narrator.

Ending I is "[I] shall not betray." Side with the machines in the Forest Kingdom instead of completing your mission. 2B abandons YoRHa and goes native.

Ending J is "[J]ust hanging around," triggered when 9S abandons 2B during the Copied City sequence. He just wanders off. Mission over.

Ending K is "[K]ill." During the hacking sequence inside the factory boss, destroy the core too early before the story is ready for it. The narrative collapses.

Ending L is "[L]one wolf." Abandon your companion during certain missions. Walk the wrong direction long enough and the game just gives up on you.

Ending M is "[M]achine massacre." Destroy every machine in Pascal's peaceful village. The game lets you do it and then judges you harshly for it.

Ending N is "[N]o man's village." Same as above but with extra violence. Kill Pascal himself after destroying the village. It is one of the darkest moments hidden in a "joke" ending.

Ending O is "[O]nward," triggered by walking into the desert alone and refusing to complete the main mission. Your partner eventually gives up and leaves.

Ending P is "[P]aper tiger." Let the timer run out during a timed escort mission. Everyone dies. You failed to protect them.

Ending Q is "[Q]uestionable actions." Abandon your escort during the machine village protection sequence. Pascal's community gets wiped out because you walked away.

Ending R is "[R]eckless endangerment." Destroy friendly machines during the hacking defense sections. 9S accidentally kills an ally and the mission fails catastrophically.

Ending S is "[S]urfing." In the flooded city, ride the fish-shaped machine too far from the mission zone. You just keep going. No coming back.

Ending T is "[T]ired." Self-destruct in the Bunker. The Commander is not amused. Neither is anyone else.

Ending U is "[U]ncontrollable." Let the virus-infected 2B die by standing still during Route C's opening. You simply watch her fall.

Ending V is "[V]aliant warrior." Die during the Hegel boss fight by letting the timer expire. The machines celebrate.

Ending W is "[W]orld destruction." Hack into the factory boss and choose the self-destruct option. The entire factory takes you with it.

Ending X is "ne[X]t world." During the Tower sequence, refuse to fight and let the machines win. The machine network launches its ark with your data inside.

Ending Y is "[Y]ielding to despair." Give up during the final Tower climb. 9S or A2 simply stops fighting. The credits roll over a silent, ruined Earth.

Ending Z is "over[Z]ealous." Destroy A2 too quickly during a certain boss encounter, skipping the intended dialogue. The story breaks because you were too efficient.

These joke endings are not filler. They reward exploration, punish recklessness, and reinforce the game's themes about choice and consequence. Every one of them forces you to think about what you just did and why the game let you do it.

Some are genuinely funny. Others, like Endings M and N, are quietly devastating. Yoko Taro understands that giving the player freedom means letting them make terrible decisions and then making them sit with the results.

Collecting all 26 endings also unlocks a special thank-you message from the development team. It is a small reward for an enormous commitment, but NieR: Automata has never been about tangible rewards. It has always been about the journey and what it costs you to reach the end.

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