Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139... drops you into an expansive world full of countless side quests, shadowy enemies, huge boss fights, swords, magic, Words, and fishing. With so much to do and manage, this remastered version of Nier Replicant might feel imposing, but we’re here to help.

Our Nier Replicant remastered beginner’s guide is full of tips, whether you’re veteran or just starting your journey in this post-apocalyptic world. We’ve got advice on save points, regional maps, side quests, Words, and making money.

Save often

The Nier Replicant remake doesn't have autosave. Instead, you need to visit magical steampunk post boxes called save points.

Do this often — every time you pass a save point, in fact. It’s far too easy and much too frustrating to lose a bunch of progress just because you forgot to save.

Buy regional maps from Item Shops

When you first arrive, each area you explore in the remastered Nier Replicant appears as a black void on both your minimap and your larger map. To fill in details, you need maps for every location. Traveling from your Village through the Northern Plains and to The Aerie involves three different maps.

Sometimes, you get these maps as part of the story or side quest. More often, you need to buy them from an Item Shop. They’re relatively cheap, so make them your first purchase any time you reach a new town. The navigational headache they’ll save you is very much worth it.

Pick up everything

Every region you visit, explore, or even just pass through in Nier Replicant has resources to collect. You’ll find them at glowing points on the ground, from enemies that drop rewards, and you can even harvest them from hunting animals.

Some items only appear in certain regions. Others are drops from specific animals. Still others only rarely drop from certain animals or enemies.

Pick up anything and everything you can. Some of the stuff is useful for completing (side) quests (more on this in our side quests section below) while other resources allow you to upgrade your weapons.

Hoard your valuable items

You’re going to end up with a lot of stuff just sitting in your inventory for extended periods of time. You could sell these items to any vendor in any town for some quick cash, but hold off on selling things (or at least keep a bit of everything in your inventory).

If you end up massacring sheep for an afternoon and collect 100 mutton, you’re safe to sell off most of it, for example. You should not, however, sell off items you’ve only collected one of, no matter how valuable they are. You never know when you’ll need it down the line.

Besides, it’s much easier and faster to make money by doing side quests.

Do side quests to make money and get invested in the story

Side quests as we like to think of them, or just quests as the game likes to think of them, take up a lot of your time in the Nier Replicant remake. The vast (vast) majority of them are simple fetch quests of the “go find me 10 of this thing, and bring it back” variety. They’re not just fluff, though. They fill out the story and lead you to explore the world around you.

More importantly, they’re an easy way to make quick cash. The quests you can pick up right in your Village at the beginning of the game will net you about 10,000 gold, for example.

Assign Words as you collect them

Once you meet up with Grimoire Weiss, you’ll start collecting Sealed Verses. using magic attacks, and picking up Words.

Words are buffs you can apply to your weapon attacks, Sealed Verses magic attacks, and defensive martial arts. You’ll mix and match them (and view their effects) from the pause menu by selecting Grimoire Weiss > Word Edit.

You’ll collect new Words as drops when you kill shades. That means you might collect them while you’re distracted by combat. Make it a habit to periodically check your Words to see if there’s anything better. There’s even an “Equip best Words” option that automatically assigns the most powerful Words you have available.

Nier Replicant has two halves, and you can’t go back

This one isn’t a beginner’s tip, per se, but it’s important to understand early. Nier Replicant’s story and game is broken into two halves. When you reach the second half (it’s an important story moment, so you won’t miss it), you can't go back to any content from the first half.

That means you have to complete all of the quests and collect all of the weapons in the first half before you continue into the second half of the game. Otherwise, you won’t be able to complete them, and you might miss out on weapons or even seeing some of Nier Replicant’s endings.