A must-play PS4 experience, Nier: Automata offers a stunningly beautiful ruined Earth to explore while dispatching robotic enemies by the hundreds (check out our full review).
While the resistance is facing overwhelming odds and should be working together, it turns out perhaps everyone isn’t on the same page after all, with some androids who are supposed to be on your side going rogue and stealing supplies.
That’s the premise of the YoRHa Betrayers side quest, which is bestowed by checking your email and receiving a confidential mission details message. The message starting the YoRHA Betrayers quest will only appear after the Goliath event when you access the flooded ruins. You can grab this mission at any access point after that event.
Starting YoRHa Betrayers Side Quest
YoRHA Betrayers Quest Walkthrough
After reading the email message and starting the quest, three different map locations will be marked where the rogue androids could possibly be hiding out. The idea is to detain them, find out why they went rogue, and recover the stolen supplies.
Where the two androids actually end up for the first battle is randomized, so try all three marked map locations in order until you see a brief cut scene where they show up, but keep the other two locations in mind as you will need to search them out later.
Finding Renegade Androids
Partway through the battle, the betrayers will flee and there’s no way to stop them (with 9S blithely commenting “they got away”). Here’s where people tend to run into trouble with this side quest – you have to check the other two previous locations to find them.
Remember that starting area after finishing the prologue mission and first getting into the open world aspect of the game? Frequently the rogue YoRHa soldiers will appear for the second battle on the main building rooftop from way back in the beginning of the game in the city ruins area.
First you must defeat the two androids from the previous battle, then a third will appear who should be tackled with long-range attacks rather than up-close melee.
You may notice this quickly goes from “interrogate” to “exterminate” with very little provocation. 9S won’t be happy about killing fellow androids and the mission parameters suddenly changing from capture to kill without warning. Pay attention, because this has big repercussions in one of the game’s many endings!
Finishing off the rogue androids
Following the second battle, return to the resistance camp and speak with resistance leader Anemone to complete the quest and earn 10,000 G, 400 XP, and Type 40 Lance.
Disturbingly, it will appear the YoRHa deserters didn’t actually steal anything at all, and command sent down the mission request for reasons unknown. No one can seem to answer the questions 9S has about why this mission was given in the first place and how the intel managed to be bungled so badly.
Problems Completing YoRHa Betrayers
Whether a bug or an intentional issue that just isn’t explained well in the dialog, many players are reporting that the rogue androids don’t spawn in any of the locations.
At this point it appears they most frequently won’t actually show up until after you have completed main story quest The Forest Kingdom, but some players still don’t get the androids to spawn even if they’d already completed the quest.
The most surefire way to get them to show up is simply to complete the next main story quest and then return to the three locations, which seems to resolve the issue most of the time.
Finishing the YoRHa Betrayers Side Quest
Need more help with other aspects of the massive Nier: Automata? Check out our other guide content:
