In the anime adaptation, the Church appears to be located within the Copied City, containing a graveyard for humanity and aliens, as well as a library.
Predating the debut of the Church in Ver1.1a was a mysterious community mod that sparked controversy as to whether it was the last secret of Automata.
The hoax originated as a "cryptic post" on Reddit by user sadfutago on June 15, 2022, who asked how to open a church in the Copied City. The area was never before seen and inaccessible to other players. The mod's viral popularity increased when Automata producer Yosuke Saito and creator Yoko Taro retweeted videos of it, with Saito calling it an "eternal mystery."
Fans ultimately asked Yoko Taro on Twitter to clarify whether he had secretly added it to the game, something made more believable by the fact that a hyper-specific cheat code had previously been discovered in 2021 that was later officially confirmed. However, Yoko refused to comment, pointing fans to his policy of directing any questions about his games to his publisher.
The fan community made extensive efforts to discover how to unlock the church, with the efforts being chronicled on Twitter by Vera, a NieR fan. "Bloby," an enemy composed of a dark mass that could be battled within the church, became an "icon" to fans.
On July 29, 2022, the mod's creators held a Twitch stream where they revealed that it was developed by fans.
