The Nier Replicant "Daredevil" achievement has upset a number of players for an apparent requirement to get an upskirt shot and the text in the achievement used to describe an intersex character.
Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139 is an upcoming remake of Nier Replicant (the alternative version released in the US with a few additional international changes was Nier Gestalt ). The original version of the game had a key difference — the character Kainé is intersex in the original Japanese version. That is to say, she has both male and female sex characteristics. Conversely, the US version pf Nier Gestalt portrayed Kainé as a woman who is possessed by a male Gestalt.
That has since changed for the upcoming rerelease Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139. Aside from upping the graphics, this new version of the game also adds some new achievements — and the Daredevil achievement, in particular, has pissed off quite a few people on Twitter.
What is the Nier Replicant Daredevil Achievement?
Unfortunately, we don't know much about the Nier Replicant Daredevil achievement beyond the achievement name, the icon, and the text description seen in the image above (via @dadnier on Twitter). Here's what it says:
Daredevil
You risked life and limb 10 times to discover someone's secret.
Based on the icon and description, some players are guessing that this requires you to get an "upskirt" shot of Kainé. A similar achievement called "What Are You Doing?" exists for Nier Automata and the Daredevil achievement appears to be one of the new additions for the Replicant remake. A handful of other games have similar achievements requiring players to get an upskirt shot; one such example is Lollypop Chainsaw's "I Swear! I Did It By Mistake!" achievement.
Quite a few people aren't happy at the apparent inclusion of an upskirt achievement, but most of the complaints also highlight the fact that Kainé is an intersex character and that the wording of this tweet offends them.
"Like this is enough to get me considering canceling my pre-order honestly?" read a tweet from @lnc0. "Absolutely have no faith they're gonna do Kanie right if 'haha penis' is where we're at. Intersex people deserve better [than] this @SquareEnix[.]"
"Okay, developers, listen:" began a tweet from @JK_DarkSide. "If you are not making a smut or porn game, please do not include an achievement for looking at a character's crotch[.] ESPECIALLY when that character is intersex[.]"
On the other side of the coin, some people aren't all that bothered by the achievement, highlighting Yoko Taro's liberal attitude towards sexuality in general.
"Yoko Taro has made being horny one of his trademarks[,]" @StellaNoxEclair said on Twitter. "I'm not sure why there's a controversy here[.] I'm not even saying he's right it's just kind of been common knowledge since [he said] 'I want to download all the 2B porn people make' in 2017[.]"
"I just don't think there's any malicious intent here personally, especially if you look at the history of who's making the game," @StellaNoxEclair added in a reply.
There's one final point to address on the topic of the Nier Replicant Daredevil achievement — one person points out that we can't say for certain who put this achievement in the game or who decided on the wording of it.
"Reminder to everyone that this was highly likely another team entirely making the achievements and not to harass Yoko Taro or anyone higher up on the project," @Mama_Bedlam explained.
We don't know why this particular achievement was added, who added it, or who decided on the wording of the tweet or the English translation of the name and description.
That's not the biggest issue here, though; ultimately, we can't say with absolute certainty that getting this achievement requires an upskirt shot just like the "What Are You Doing?" achievement in Nier Automata; bear in mind that all of this discussion is based off of the achievement icon and description alone. For now, we've reached out to Square Enix for comment and will update this article when we receive a reply.
