NieR: Automata - Simple AFK Leveling Guide

If you are tired of grinding and can’t get the bunny trick to work, you can always watch TV and let the AI level for you! This will help you get to 80+.

Other NieR: Automata Guides:

All Weapons / Pod Skill Locations and Sidequest Help with Visuals.
Heritage of the Past (Relic Locations).
Adam’s Glasses Secret Location.
Floaded City (Virus Infected Run Guide).
Crushed Nuts Farming.

Super Simple Explaination

All credit goes to LarsMidnatt!

I am not sure the minimum level to do this AFK. I was 58 when I started. The mobs seem to be in the low 60’s. I was never in any danger, so I assume if you have the right chips equipped you can do it way earlier than 58.

I went from 58 to 81 using this method.

What you need:

Access to the Copied City.
Exp gain chips (100% preferable ofc).
Easy Mode Enabled.
Auto chips equipped (Evade, attack, pod program and firing).
Auto collect a plus and can be purchased from the Redheaded Twins in the Resistance Camp.

You may also need:

Chips for Health regen, increased damage and max health.
Unequip useless Chips like Map, log etc to save space if needed.
Chapter Select.

What to do:

I used Chapter 16 as my starting point. But any chapter where you won’t trigger a fail condition by exploring should work.
Head to the Copied City and navigate to the corner where you fought Adam previously.
Just leave the character alone, the chips will do all the work. Killing, collecting, healing and evading without any input.
Enemies will continue to spawn endlessly, with slight breaks between waves.
Leave the game alone, but check on it every so often to make sure all is well.
Occassionally you may need to move the character back to the room because they run out to the alley chasing enemies. I only had to do this once or twice over the course of a movie.

Suggestions:

Turn the game to windowed mode.
Settings>Game>Inactive Play On. This will keep game running in background as you do other tings.
Settings>Sound>Inactive Sound Off. Optional ofc.
Lower the window resolution (just to save on power and GPU usage as you will want to leave this alone for a couple of hours. Maybe helpful when you only have one monitor too).
Move game to secondary monitor if you have one.
Watch TV or browse web while the AI does it’s work.

Tip: XP gain chips can be gained in the Amusement park, but there are guides for that. Also there are Drop chips in the amusement park too.

Bonus: If you have auto collect on you will gain a ton of materials and chips you can use for upgrading, or you can just sell for money. I earned over 200k from drops without selling anything. I maxed out some materials and got a ton of useless Hijack Boosts, Ranged attack, heal drop and drop rate chips as well.