NieR:Automata and DLC Country Locked

For the Nintendo Switch game version.

This is a fantastic game! Loving it. I happened to stumble upon a games news article talking about which Nintendo Switch games to play that have recently been released or coming out soon. That was in October. A month or so later, and here I am playing NieR:Automata The End of YoRHa Edition for a week, and, did I mention I’m loving it?! I am 5 years late too. This isn’t really a new game, but new to the Switch though.

NieR:Automata The End of YoRHa Edition is a 3rd person ARPG. And like many others in its genre one can rotate the camera around a controlled character pretty much how you want it. The gameplay though has other interesting perspectives that changes every now and then. Without giving too much away, it can shift to a side-scroller, or top-down view, that makes it feel like old school arcade games. It even has aerial combat portions during playthrough that has the main protagonists 2B and 9S flying in a mech suit. Hacking mode? Yes. So nerdy indeed.

It is set in a distant future. A war between humans and invading aliens has been raging on for long, long years. When the story starts, the humans have practically been wiped off of the face of Earth for several decades already. The last few remnants of human civilization, those who survived, are now exiled on the Moon. Yet, the war continues between the aliens’ machines and the humans’ androids. The machines look like your typical robot – comes in various shapes and sizes, talks like one too – and have taken over most of what’s left of the planet. Speaking of which, would have loved it if they made the machines look more alien-like.

Then there’s a sort of 3rd group called the Resistance. They’re a bunch of androids who have been living on Earth for a while. They still fight against the machines, but I’m not really sure about the backstory yet of Nier games, and I feel like they’re not really a part of the human military war effort.

So there you go. The premise of the game’s story is simple. You initially will be 2B. One of the main protagonists of the game who is a combat android unit. Your missions? Destroy the machines of course. What else? Her attacks will be primarily via melee-type weapons. Did I mention 2B is a she? Yes, and a sexy one at that. There’s a lot of ass and upskirts on this game too. Her outfit doesn’t hide much of her lower half. 😁

Cutscenes

The “free DLC”

Despite the praises I have for this game, there’s one main gripe I have about it though. And that is…. (Drum roll please)

The stupid country-locked DLC. There are 2 free DLCs that comes with this Nintendo Switch version of the game. The other one which I shall not name here is okay (It’s already incorporated into this game port). The one I have issue with is specifically on the 2nd one, DLC 80823, or if you want the full name it is – 6C2P4A118680823.

Didn’t know about any of these DLCs when I started playing Nier:Automata. I was already almost 24hrs in total game play logged (That’s over several days of course), when I found out after reading about Nier:Automata tidbits on some random blogs.

Naturally I got curious. It’s free so why not get it, right? Lo, and behold, I was greeted with Error Code: 2811-6003 – Software currently unavailable when I tried to download this DLC from the game’s title screen. That’s basically Nintendo saying, the item you’re downloading or trying to load is not available for your country or region.

I read furthermore about this DLC thingie and how to install it. Perhaps I did not do it properly. Apparently one can go directly to the Nintendo eShop and search for this DLC. Downloaded it. Of course, that didn’t work too. It looked liked the image that follows afterwards. If you try and click the copy, it will say something like – “NieR:Automata The End of YoRHa Edition, is needed in order to access this content.” For a moment I thought I bought a fake Nintendo game from DataBlitz (Popular games store in the Philippines).

NieR:Automata title doubly-listed on Nintendo Switch, after downloading DLC 6C2P4A118680823 directly from eShop.

Then I looked inside the game case and there were some paper materials inside it that said the DLC 80823 is only available in Hong Kong. What the FUCK?!

😠 Yes, I was furious. Even tweeted Square Enix and Nier Games official Twitter accounts about it. No response whatsoever. Not that I expected any.

This caveat about it having certain country/region download restrictions is not mentioned in the publisher’s game page. Perhaps it was obscured in a fine print somewhere or tucked away in a link several HTTPs away? For us to purposely miss. Deceptive marketing of sorts, if anything. This should be clearly mentioned. That this DLC, although free, may not be available depending on account country and game copy that is for another country/region. I don’t care if this is the publisher’s responsibility or Nintendo’s. Instead, it should not be downloadable from the eShop directly if the Switch sees that your account region is not compatible with the game copy you have. It’s confusing. But the fact that an extra “free DLC” intended for all Nintendo Switch customers – as they have enticed – has to be country/region gated is just absurd. Seriously. They should stop this nonsense.

As a side note, the Philippines does not belong to any region in the Nintendo world if we have to be strict about it. There is no SEA (South-East Asia) the last time I checked, which is generally the region we are associated to, or Asia as a whole. Guess what, there is no Asia too. The Philippines is an option under Country from the Nintendo Account, no doubt. That’s different though. This all ties up to the eShop, probably language settings (Not sure if language preference can be changed because when I logged in on a Hong Kong account, I’m seeing non-English text automatically in the eShop) and other things. Some time ago I tried to add credits or buy something from the store when my previously chosen country and region made it complicated. My memory is hazy on this one, but I ended up choosing USA/Americas, respectively, to circumvent restrictions.

DLC Country Lock Workaround

Worry no more though. There is a solution for this region-locking stupidity. It is nothing hard. Albeit a hassle.

My free DLC 6C2P4A118680823 is locked to Hong Kong. Remember how I tried to download this from the game’s title screen but it didn’t work? When I got that error I tried matching my Switch’s region to the appropriate one. That didn’t work as well. I almost gave up.

Step 1

Going a step further, I created another Nintendo Account. Yes. Point your browser to https://accounts.nintendo.com and get a new one. Make sure you match the country with whatever it should be. This information may not be so obvious if you’re not fond of looking at the packaging and reading promo materials that come with the item you bought. I am one of those, although I have a tendency to keep them. So go back and look for that piece of paper if you don’t know.

Step 2

Now, on your Nintendo Switch create a new user profile. At this point too make sure the game is exited.

Step 4

Link the new account to this new profile.

Step 5

Open the Nier:Automata game. Choose the new profile you just created. At the title screen select Downloadable Content. Wait for the download to finish. Exit the game again (I actually let the game idle on the title screen for a while. As if to say, soak in that DLC you bastard! 😅 In reality I was contemplating on going back to square one or not. Then it occurred to me that with the DLC already installed, maybe it should now work for all profiles. 👏 So glad that I checked it out first).

Step 6

Open the game but this time go back to your main profile.

Step 7

Proceed to pull up the Menu then go to Items > Key Items.

All the freebies should be there and usable now. 👇👇

After all this I wonder if I could’ve easily changed my main account country to Hong Kong, download the content, then revert? It doesn’t seem like they’re checking anyway after the DLC has been installed or the Switch’s region at the time of download. That could’ve been an easier route? But I don’t want to risk borking up my main profile where I have several games tied to it. Oh, well. Who cares. I got the DLC now.

As written verbatim on the official game page: https://nierautomata.square-enix-games.com/switch/en-us/

EXCLUSIVE “6C2P4A118680823” DLC AVAILABLE ON THE NINTENDO ESHOP

“6C2P4A118680823” is a free DLC* for NieR:Automata The End of YoRHa Edition. In addition to six costumes and four accessories, two pod skins for characters from the related title, NieR Re[in]carnation, are also included.

  • 2P’s Body Replica (for 2B) 
  • 9P’s Body Replica (for 9S) 
  • P2’s Body Replica (for A2)
  • YoRHa Uniform 1 (for 2B)
  • YoRHa Uniform 2 (for 9S) 
  • YoRHa Uniform Prototype (for A2) 
  • White Fox Mask 
  • Black Fox Mask
  • Under the Moon Bauble 
  • Remnant Flower Bauble 
  • Mama (for Pod 042) 
  • Carrier (for Pod 153)
Gameplay screenshots

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