NieR: Automata Death Penalty: What It Means

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• Death Penalty In NieR: Automata Explained

• Recovering Your Body In NieR: Automata

NieR: Automata, while not immediately apparent, incorporates strict roguelike mechanics that can significantly impact your progress if you die under the wrong circumstances. Losing items that you've spent hours finding and upgrading can be a major setback, especially in late-game scenarios. However, all is not lost immediately upon death, as you have a chance to recover what you've lost before it's gone forever. Here’s a detailed look at what happens when you die and how to recover your body to minimize permanent losses.

Death Penalty In NieR: Automata Explained

Dying in NieR: Automata results in the loss of any XP earned since your last save, as well as all your currently equipped Plug-In Chips. While you can find more Plug-In Chips and rebuild your loadout, some chips are rarer and more costly to upgrade. Upon respawning, your equipped Plug-In set will be empty, requiring you to either equip a new loadout or select one of your other presets.

The Plug-In Chips lost upon death aren't permanently gone. You have one life to return to your point of death and recover those chips, and possibly the XP. If you die again before recovering your body, all chips from the original preset will be lost forever.

Recovering Your Body In NieR: Automata

After respawning, your primary objective should be to recover your body. A small blue body icon will appear on the map, indicating the location of your body. You can select this icon to set a tracker to its location. When you reach your body, simply interact with it to retrieve your Plug-In Chips. At this point, you'll have two options for what to do with your body:

• Repair: You won't recover the lost XP, but your old body will transform into an AI companion that will follow you until it's destroyed.

• Retrieve: You'll regain the XP lost since your last save.

Regardless of the option you choose, you'll have the opportunity to re-equip your old Plug-In Chips as they were, overriding your current setup. Alternatively, you can choose not to re-equip them, and the recovered chips will be added back to your inventory.