NieR:Automata Unburger
NieR:Automata Unburger is an English retranslation and script restoration project for NieR:Automata, built for players who want the English text to follow the Japanese script, original character voices, and original tone much more closely than the official localization.
This is not a joke rewrite, a meme patch, or a "make the English more literal at all costs" project. The goal is simple. Keep what the Japanese script says, preserve how the characters address one another, restore censored or altered terminology, and polish the English so it reads naturally without turning it into a new localization.
The patch is intended to be used with the original Japanese voices. The whole point of this project is to bring the English text closer to the original spoken script and Japanese characterization. Using the English dub with this patch will constantly create a mismatch between what is heard and what is written, and it simply misses the point of the project.
Current Status
This is not the final version yet.
The patch is functional, and the full script is translated, but mistakes are still expected. The text will continue to be checked, corrected, and polished over time. If you want to help find issues, reports are welcome. If you simply want to play the game now and do not mind the possibility of minor remaining rough spots, the patch is already usable for that.
What This Project Does
NieR:Automata's official English localization is readable and often stylish, but it is also heavily adapted. In many places it rewrites tone, adds jokes or stronger attitude, removes Japanese address nuance, changes character dynamics, replaces culturally specific or lore-relevant wording, and sometimes smooths quiet scenes into something more openly dramatic.
Unburger takes the opposite approach:
This is a large-scale re-translation, not a small terminology patch.
Who This Patch Is For
This patch is for players who:
It is probably not for players who prefer the official English dub/localization as a separate adaptation, or who want every line rewritten into idiomatic American English regardless of what the Japanese script actually says.
Why It Exists
NieR:Automata is a game where tone matters. A lot.
The story is not carried only by plot revelations. It is carried by restraint, repetition, awkward distance, small forms of address, deadpan reports, deliberately mechanical phrasing, and the contrast between what characters say and what they are clearly feeling. When the English script turns those into broader jokes, harsher insults, military banter, extra profanity, or more "cinematic" emotional narration, the surface may become smoother, but the character writing changes.
One of the clearest examples is 2B. In the Japanese script, 2B is reserved, controlled, and often emotionally guarded, but she is not simply cold or abrasive. The official English often pushes her toward a sharper, more dismissive personality, while repeated address forms such as 2B-san and 9S-san are flattened into plain names or rewritten around entirely. Those small forms of address are part of how 9S, Operator 6O, Pascal, Emil, and other characters position themselves around 2B and 9S.
That may look small in isolation. Across a whole game, it changes the relationship.
Unburger restores those details because they are not decoration. They are part of the writing.
What Was Restored Or Changed
Characterization
The project reduces localization-added harshness, snark, and overacting where the Japanese does not support it. 2B is still restrained and mission-focused, A2 is still blunt, 9S is still emotional and increasingly unstable, and the Operators still have distinct voices, but the patch avoids turning every tense line into a more aggressive English punchline.
Honorifics And Address Nuance
Honorifics such as -san, direct relationship terms, and important address forms are preserved where they carry relationship information. This includes lines such as 2B-san, A2-san, Emil-san, Operator-san, and direct family-style Machine address forms where the Japanese uses them.
The goal is not to sprinkle Japanese into English for flavor. The goal is to preserve information the official localization often discards.
Censorship, Sanitization, And Name Changes
The US localization contains altered strings for the Sartre sidequest, replacing Sartre with Jean-Paul in player-facing text. This patch restores Sartre consistently in the relevant English text, including quest descriptions, item names, and enemy/archive references.
This matters because the game's philosophical naming is not incidental. Removing or blurring it weakens one of the game's recurring design patterns.
The same principle applies to smaller sanitized words. If a Machine says おっぱい, the patch does not turn it into something unrelated just because the word is awkward or silly. NieR's Machine speech is often disturbing precisely because childlike, sexual, violent, affectionate, and broken fragments are mixed together.
Replicant References
The patch also restores Replicant-specific relationship references where Automata's Japanese script points to them. A clear example is a Yonah weapon story. The Japanese says おにいちゃん / Onii-chan, but the official English turns the addressee into Dad, shifting the emotional reference toward NieR Gestalt's father-daughter version.
This is not a minor pronoun choice. Automata's Japanese text is explicitly using the brother/sister relationship, and the revised script follows that.
Old World Cultural Texture
The desert housing complex is another example of a detail that looks small until it is removed. The Japanese uses マンモス団地 and 団地. Wording tied to Japan's large-scale planned housing estates, especially the postwar and high-growth-era image of dense apartment blocks built as whole residential environments rather than isolated buildings. A danchi is not simply "an apartment complex." It evokes a planned cluster of homes with shared facilities, neighborhood routines, public space, children, families, aging buildings, notices, rules, and a very specific kind of everyday modern life.
The official English often reduces this to plain apartment complex wording. It does not translate the cultural reference or make it readable in context; it simply removes the reference, as if a Western audience could not be trusted to understand a specific Japanese term if the script gave them enough context. Unburger restores Mammoth Housing Complex and keeps danchi where the line is explaining the term.
This matters because NieR:Automata is constantly asking androids and Machines to interpret human traces they do not fully understand. The desert ruins are not just "some buildings." They are remnants of dense communal human living. Families, shared facilities, household routines, newsletters, garbage rules, futons, and all the mundane evidence that humans once existed as people rather than as mythology.
Profanity And Punch-Up
The official English often adds stronger profanity or rougher attitude where the Japanese is milder, quieter, or simply saying something different. This patch does not remove every harsh word. Jackass should still sound like Jackass, A2 can still be blunt, and クソッ should not become polite. But added goddamn, batshit, dumbass, and similar punch-ups are reviewed against the source instead of being treated as default flavor.
Tone And Dramatic Restraint
Several text-adventure / novel-style records were rewritten closer to the Japanese source. The official English sometimes adds dramatic narration, moves page breaks, collapses pauses, or makes scenes more literary than the Japanese. Unburger restores the colder, more report-like rhythm where the original uses it.
For example, the Anemone / Pearl Harbor Descent Operation records were rechecked against the Japanese text, with page structure and <bt_wait> timing restored. The result is less "novelized" and closer to the exhausted, restrained narration of the original.
Machine Speech
Machine Lifeform speech was reviewed carefully. Some Machines speak in deliberately broken or katakana-like Japanese, but that does not mean every Machine should become a comedy caveman in English. The patch keeps oddness where appropriate while avoiding blanket all-caps, meme phrasing, or over-localized dialect.
Lore And Terminology
The patch standardizes many lore-sensitive terms across story, archives, objectives, sidequests, and UI text. Examples include Machine Lifeforms, Forest Kingdom, Red Girls, Pearl Harbor Descent Operation, Super-Large-Scale Weapon, God / Box of God in religious-machine contexts, and restored YoRHa/Pearl Harbor terminology.
Examples
These examples are not cherry-picked to show typos. They show the kinds of changes this project cares about. Relationship nuance, characterization, censorship, and tone.
1. 2B-san Is Relationship Texture, Not Decoration
This is not about adding Japanese for flavor. Operator 6O's repeated 2B-san is part of how she keeps a respectful, affectionate distance from 2B. Removing it flattens her voice into ordinary radio protocol.
2. 9S-san Matters Too
The official English changes the line into a vague request to report back. The Japanese is more direct and more personal. Operator 6O is pleading for 9S himself.
3. 9S's Early Insecurity Is Softer And More Specific
The official line keeps the broad idea, but softens the insecurity and removes the personal address. The revised line keeps 9S's anxious self-questioning.
4. Sanitized Machine Speech: おっぱい
This is a tiny line, but it shows the project clearly. The Machine is repeating strange human fragments. Child, love, hold me, kill, hatred, pain, and then おっぱい. The official line replaces that with an unrelated phrase. Unburger restores the strange, uncomfortable original texture.
5. Replicant Reference Restored: Yonah And Onii-chan
Automata's Japanese text points to the brother/sister version of Yonah's relationship. The official English shifts it to Dad, which changes the reference toward the Gestalt version. This patch restores what Automata's own Japanese script says.
6. Mammoth Housing Complex Is An Old World Clue
The official line keeps only the broad idea. Old residential buildings. The Japanese is more specific. マンモス団地 refers to a huge danchi, the kind of mass housing estate strongly associated with Japan's postwar urban development and everyday family life in dense planned communities. It is a human-world reference, not just architecture trivia.
The result assumes the specificity is disposable because the player is not Japanese. In the desert ruins, where androids are digging through the daily traces of extinct human families, that specificity is exactly the point.
7. The Pearl Harbor Records Were De-Novelized
The official English adds a more dramatic internal monologue. The Japanese is colder and more direct. In a record like this, that restraint matters.
Project Scope
The reviewed script covers a broad range of NieR:Automata text, including:
Some decisions are deliberately conservative. The project does not rewrite every official term just because a different rendering is possible. When a term is lore-sensitive, it is kept consistent and documented.
Recommended Play Setup
Use this patch with:
Japanese voices are strongly recommended. The whole point of this project is to bring the English text closer to the original spoken script and Japanese characterization. Using the English dub with this patch will constantly create a mismatch between what is heard and what is written, and it simply misses the point of the project.
Translation is only one layer of the work. Delivery is another.
The original performances are the integral part of the game. The timing of a pause, the flatness of a report, the hesitation before a name, the restraint in an emotional scene, the way 2B-san or 9S-san is spoken, and the difference between politeness, distance, affection, and discomfort. These are not cosmetic details added after the writing is finished, but part of how the creators, voice directors, actors, and Yoko Taro's direction shape the scene.
That matters even more in a Japanese work, because characterization is often carried through register, address, silence, indirectness, and social distance. A translation can carry the words, but it cannot make an unrelated performance follow the same cultural signals. This patch is built to restore the English text to the original Japanese performance. Mixing it with the dub means pairing source-faithful subtitles with a different interpretation of the scene.
Credits
Please keep in mind that this is still a beta build. Some lines may be cut off, there may be some mistakes, and some sentences may still sound a bit stiff.
NieR:Automata Unburger is an English retranslation and script restoration project for NieR:Automata, built for players who want the English text to follow the Japanese script, original character voices, and original tone much more closely than the official localization.
This is not a joke rewrite, a meme patch, or a "make the English more literal at all costs" project. The goal is simple. Keep what the Japanese script says, preserve how the characters address one another, restore censored or altered terminology, and polish the English so it reads naturally without turning it into a new localization.
The patch is intended to be used with the original Japanese voices. The whole point of this project is to bring the English text closer to the original spoken script and Japanese characterization. Using the English dub with this patch will constantly create a mismatch between what is heard and what is written, and it simply misses the point of the project.
Current Status
This is not the final version yet.
The patch is functional, and the full script is translated, but mistakes are still expected. The text will continue to be checked, corrected, and polished over time. If you want to help find issues, reports are welcome. If you simply want to play the game now and do not mind the possibility of minor remaining rough spots, the patch is already usable for that.
What This Project Does
NieR:Automata's official English localization is readable and often stylish, but it is also heavily adapted. In many places it rewrites tone, adds jokes or stronger attitude, removes Japanese address nuance, changes character dynamics, replaces culturally specific or lore-relevant wording, and sometimes smooths quiet scenes into something more openly dramatic.
Unburger takes the opposite approach:
- Japanese text is treated as the authority.
- Honorifics and address forms are preserved when they matter.
- Character voices are kept closer to the original voice track.
- Lore terminology is made consistent across dialogue, sidequests, archives, mail, UI, DLC text, and novel/text-adventure records.
- Stiff English is polished, but not at the cost of meaning.
- Localization-only additions, punch-ups, and "sounds cooler in English" rewrites are removed where they change the scene.
- US-specific censorship and sanitization, such as the Sartre -> Jean-Paul replacement and toned-down Machine speech, are restored where applicable.
- Cross-game references are checked against Automata's own Japanese script, including Replicant-style Yonah / Onii-chan references that were shifted toward Gestalt-style "Dad" wording in English.
- Culturally specific Old World references, such as Mammoth Housing Complex / danchi terminology in the desert ruins, are restored instead of being flattened into generic apartment-complex wording.
This is a large-scale re-translation, not a small terminology patch.
Who This Patch Is For
This patch is for players who:
- play NieR:Automata with Japanese voices,
- want 2B, 9S, A2, the Operators, Pascal, Devola, Popola, Emil, and the Machines to read closer to how they sound in Japanese,
- dislike localization-heavy rewrites that change character dynamics,
- prefer honorifics and Japanese relationship nuance to be preserved,
- care about lore consistency across main story, side content, archives, and UI text,
- want censored/sanitized terms and altered cross-game references restored,
- want a more source-faithful English script without having to play in Japanese.
It is probably not for players who prefer the official English dub/localization as a separate adaptation, or who want every line rewritten into idiomatic American English regardless of what the Japanese script actually says.
Why It Exists
NieR:Automata is a game where tone matters. A lot.
The story is not carried only by plot revelations. It is carried by restraint, repetition, awkward distance, small forms of address, deadpan reports, deliberately mechanical phrasing, and the contrast between what characters say and what they are clearly feeling. When the English script turns those into broader jokes, harsher insults, military banter, extra profanity, or more "cinematic" emotional narration, the surface may become smoother, but the character writing changes.
One of the clearest examples is 2B. In the Japanese script, 2B is reserved, controlled, and often emotionally guarded, but she is not simply cold or abrasive. The official English often pushes her toward a sharper, more dismissive personality, while repeated address forms such as 2B-san and 9S-san are flattened into plain names or rewritten around entirely. Those small forms of address are part of how 9S, Operator 6O, Pascal, Emil, and other characters position themselves around 2B and 9S.
That may look small in isolation. Across a whole game, it changes the relationship.
Unburger restores those details because they are not decoration. They are part of the writing.
What Was Restored Or Changed
Characterization
The project reduces localization-added harshness, snark, and overacting where the Japanese does not support it. 2B is still restrained and mission-focused, A2 is still blunt, 9S is still emotional and increasingly unstable, and the Operators still have distinct voices, but the patch avoids turning every tense line into a more aggressive English punchline.
Honorifics And Address Nuance
Honorifics such as -san, direct relationship terms, and important address forms are preserved where they carry relationship information. This includes lines such as 2B-san, A2-san, Emil-san, Operator-san, and direct family-style Machine address forms where the Japanese uses them.
The goal is not to sprinkle Japanese into English for flavor. The goal is to preserve information the official localization often discards.
Censorship, Sanitization, And Name Changes
The US localization contains altered strings for the Sartre sidequest, replacing Sartre with Jean-Paul in player-facing text. This patch restores Sartre consistently in the relevant English text, including quest descriptions, item names, and enemy/archive references.
This matters because the game's philosophical naming is not incidental. Removing or blurring it weakens one of the game's recurring design patterns.
The same principle applies to smaller sanitized words. If a Machine says おっぱい, the patch does not turn it into something unrelated just because the word is awkward or silly. NieR's Machine speech is often disturbing precisely because childlike, sexual, violent, affectionate, and broken fragments are mixed together.
Replicant References
The patch also restores Replicant-specific relationship references where Automata's Japanese script points to them. A clear example is a Yonah weapon story. The Japanese says おにいちゃん / Onii-chan, but the official English turns the addressee into Dad, shifting the emotional reference toward NieR Gestalt's father-daughter version.
This is not a minor pronoun choice. Automata's Japanese text is explicitly using the brother/sister relationship, and the revised script follows that.
Old World Cultural Texture
The desert housing complex is another example of a detail that looks small until it is removed. The Japanese uses マンモス団地 and 団地. Wording tied to Japan's large-scale planned housing estates, especially the postwar and high-growth-era image of dense apartment blocks built as whole residential environments rather than isolated buildings. A danchi is not simply "an apartment complex." It evokes a planned cluster of homes with shared facilities, neighborhood routines, public space, children, families, aging buildings, notices, rules, and a very specific kind of everyday modern life.
The official English often reduces this to plain apartment complex wording. It does not translate the cultural reference or make it readable in context; it simply removes the reference, as if a Western audience could not be trusted to understand a specific Japanese term if the script gave them enough context. Unburger restores Mammoth Housing Complex and keeps danchi where the line is explaining the term.
This matters because NieR:Automata is constantly asking androids and Machines to interpret human traces they do not fully understand. The desert ruins are not just "some buildings." They are remnants of dense communal human living. Families, shared facilities, household routines, newsletters, garbage rules, futons, and all the mundane evidence that humans once existed as people rather than as mythology.
Profanity And Punch-Up
The official English often adds stronger profanity or rougher attitude where the Japanese is milder, quieter, or simply saying something different. This patch does not remove every harsh word. Jackass should still sound like Jackass, A2 can still be blunt, and クソッ should not become polite. But added goddamn, batshit, dumbass, and similar punch-ups are reviewed against the source instead of being treated as default flavor.
Tone And Dramatic Restraint
Several text-adventure / novel-style records were rewritten closer to the Japanese source. The official English sometimes adds dramatic narration, moves page breaks, collapses pauses, or makes scenes more literary than the Japanese. Unburger restores the colder, more report-like rhythm where the original uses it.
For example, the Anemone / Pearl Harbor Descent Operation records were rechecked against the Japanese text, with page structure and <bt_wait> timing restored. The result is less "novelized" and closer to the exhausted, restrained narration of the original.
Machine Speech
Machine Lifeform speech was reviewed carefully. Some Machines speak in deliberately broken or katakana-like Japanese, but that does not mean every Machine should become a comedy caveman in English. The patch keeps oddness where appropriate while avoiding blanket all-caps, meme phrasing, or over-localized dialect.
Lore And Terminology
The patch standardizes many lore-sensitive terms across story, archives, objectives, sidequests, and UI text. Examples include Machine Lifeforms, Forest Kingdom, Red Girls, Pearl Harbor Descent Operation, Super-Large-Scale Weapon, God / Box of God in religious-machine contexts, and restored YoRHa/Pearl Harbor terminology.
Examples
These examples are not cherry-picked to show typos. They show the kinds of changes this project cares about. Relationship nuance, characterization, censorship, and tone.
1. 2B-san Is Relationship Texture, Not Decoration
This is not about adding Japanese for flavor. Operator 6O's repeated 2B-san is part of how she keeps a respectful, affectionate distance from 2B. Removing it flattens her voice into ordinary radio protocol.
2. 9S-san Matters Too
The official English changes the line into a vague request to report back. The Japanese is more direct and more personal. Operator 6O is pleading for 9S himself.
3. 9S's Early Insecurity Is Softer And More Specific
The official line keeps the broad idea, but softens the insecurity and removes the personal address. The revised line keeps 9S's anxious self-questioning.
4. Sanitized Machine Speech: おっぱい
This is a tiny line, but it shows the project clearly. The Machine is repeating strange human fragments. Child, love, hold me, kill, hatred, pain, and then おっぱい. The official line replaces that with an unrelated phrase. Unburger restores the strange, uncomfortable original texture.
5. Replicant Reference Restored: Yonah And Onii-chan
Automata's Japanese text points to the brother/sister version of Yonah's relationship. The official English shifts it to Dad, which changes the reference toward the Gestalt version. This patch restores what Automata's own Japanese script says.
6. Mammoth Housing Complex Is An Old World Clue
The official line keeps only the broad idea. Old residential buildings. The Japanese is more specific. マンモス団地 refers to a huge danchi, the kind of mass housing estate strongly associated with Japan's postwar urban development and everyday family life in dense planned communities. It is a human-world reference, not just architecture trivia.
The result assumes the specificity is disposable because the player is not Japanese. In the desert ruins, where androids are digging through the daily traces of extinct human families, that specificity is exactly the point.
7. The Pearl Harbor Records Were De-Novelized
The official English adds a more dramatic internal monologue. The Japanese is colder and more direct. In a record like this, that restraint matters.
Project Scope
The reviewed script covers a broad range of NieR:Automata text, including:
- main story dialogue,
- Route C and ending material,
- 2B / 9S / A2 route variants,
- sidequests,
- Operator 6O and Operator 21O communications,
- Resistance Camp material,
- Machine Lifeform quests,
- Pascal village and Forest Kingdom material,
- Devola and Popola scenes,
- Emil-related side content,
- archives and mailbox text,
- weapon stories,
- quest help and UI labels,
- DLC/system text,
- text-adventure and novel records.
Some decisions are deliberately conservative. The project does not rewrite every official term just because a different rendering is possible. When a term is lore-sensitive, it is kept consistent and documented.
Recommended Play Setup
Use this patch with:
- a legitimate copy of NieR:Automata,
- Japanese voice audio,
- English text through this patch.
Japanese voices are strongly recommended. The whole point of this project is to bring the English text closer to the original spoken script and Japanese characterization. Using the English dub with this patch will constantly create a mismatch between what is heard and what is written, and it simply misses the point of the project.
Translation is only one layer of the work. Delivery is another.
The original performances are the integral part of the game. The timing of a pause, the flatness of a report, the hesitation before a name, the restraint in an emotional scene, the way 2B-san or 9S-san is spoken, and the difference between politeness, distance, affection, and discomfort. These are not cosmetic details added after the writing is finished, but part of how the creators, voice directors, actors, and Yoko Taro's direction shape the scene.
That matters even more in a Japanese work, because characterization is often carried through register, address, silence, indirectness, and social distance. A translation can carry the words, but it cannot make an unrelated performance follow the same cultural signals. This patch is built to restore the English text to the original Japanese performance. Mixing it with the dub means pairing source-faithful subtitles with a different interpretation of the scene.
Credits
- Main translation: kyuubo
- Technical work, text preparation, repacking, builds, scripts, and TL check: rsc-pl
- Additional TL check: Mblack
Please keep in mind that this is still a beta build. Some lines may be cut off, there may be some mistakes, and some sentences may still sound a bit stiff.
