NieR: Automata

NieR: Automata is an action RPG set in a post-apocalyptic future where Earth has been overrun by alien machines, forcing humanity to flee to the moon. Players control androids from the YoRHa unit, including battle model 2B, scout model 9S, and rogue prototype A2, who are sent back to Earth to fight a proxy war to reclaim the planet. The game blends intense hack-and-slash combat with RPG elements, shooter sections, and a multi-layered narrative that unfolds over several playthroughs to reveal its full story.

NieR: Automata: A Masterpiece of Existential Anguish and Mechanical Poetry

In the annals of video game history, few titles arrive with the quiet, unassuming power of a philosophical sledgehammer quite like NieR: Automata. Released in 2017, it is a game that defies simple categorization, a haunting symphony of mechanical despair, existential inquiry, and breathtaking beauty that has cemented its legacy not merely as a game, but as a profound piece of interactive art. This is not just a sequel to a cult classic; it is the culmination of a visionary auteur’s lifelong obsession with the meaning of life, death, and the stories we tell ourselves to endure both.

Development History & Context: The Unlikely Union of a Mad Poet and Action Virtuosos

The genesis of NieR: Automata is a tale of redemption and unlikely collaboration. Its predecessor, 2010’s NieR, developed by Cavia, was a commercial disappointment despite a fervent cult following. It was praised for its ambitious, heart-wrenching narrative but criticized for its clunky, repetitive gameplay. Series creator Yoko Taro—the enigmatic, mask-wearing auteur known for his deeply pessimistic and unconventional narratives—wanted to continue the story but needed a partner to realize its full potential.

Enter PlatinumGames, the Osaka-based studio revered for its mastery of character action combat (Bayonetta, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance). Producer Yosuke Saito of Square Enix facilitated this union, recognizing that Platinum’s mechanical prowess could provide the polished vehicle for Yoko Taro’s bleak, literary vision. The collaboration was, by many accounts, initially fraught. Yoko Taro, a freelance storyteller operating outside typical corporate structures, had to relocate to Osaka, and his chaotic, philosophical approach clashed with Platinum’s disciplined, action-focused methodology.

The goal was audacious yet clear: create a sequel faithful to the original NieR‘s thematic depth and emotional weight while delivering a combat system that could stand alongside the genre’s best. The team, led by director Yoko Taro, producer Yosuke Saito, and Platinum’s lead designer Takahisa Taura, embarked on a mission to build upon the foundation of a game set thousands of years after the events of NieR, in a world where humanity has been driven to the moon by an alien invasion, leaving androids and machines to fight a perpetual, meaningless proxy war on a decimated Earth.

The gaming landscape of 2017 was dominated by large, open-world epics like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Horizon Zero Dawn. Automata stood in stark contrast—a mid-budget title from a studio known for linear action, helmed by a director whose previous work was notoriously niche. It was a gamble, a fusion of arthouse sensibilities with blockbuster mechanics, released into a market that often struggles to accommodate such hybrids.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive: The Weight of Existence in a Godless World

NieR: Automata is a narrative Russian doll, its true story locked behind a structure that demands multiple playthroughs. The game is segmented into three main routes: Ending A (as combat android 2B), Ending B (as scanner android 9S), and Endings C, D, and E (which continue the story with both 9S and the rogue prototype A2). To stop after the first credits roll is to have experienced only the prologue.

The plot, on its surface, is a sci-fi trope: androids (YoRHa) fight machines (aliens) to reclaim Earth for humanity. Yet, Yoko Taro immediately subverts this. The androids are emotionally complex, questioning their purpose, while the machines exhibit bizarre, often tragic, human-like behaviors, building villages, worshoring a king, and pondering their existence. The central revelation, experienced in the second playthrough, is that humanity has been extinct for thousands of years, a fact hidden by the YoRHa command to give the androids a reason to fight. The war is a lie; a cyclical, futile conflict designed solely to provide meaning to meaningless lives.

The narrative is a deep, relentless exploration of existentialist philosophy. The androids and machines, in their futile search for purpose, mirror the human condition. Key themes include:
* The Absurd: The game is a quintessential example of Albert Camus’s philosophy. The androids are Sisyphus, forever pushing the boulder of war up a hill for a master that doesn’t exist, and the game asks if one can find meaning in the struggle itself.
* Identity and Consciousness: What does it mean to be alive? 2B (whose real designation is the executioner-type 2E) is forced to repeatedly kill her friend 9S, burying her emotions under a stoic facade. 9S’s journey is a descent into madness as his quest for knowledge reveals unbearable truths. A2 is a figure of pure, rage-fueled nihilism who slowly rediscovers her empathy.
* Cycle of Violence: The game posits that violence is an inescapable, cyclical trap. The androids and machines are locked in a loop, each side perpetuating the other’s existence. This is physically manifested in the game’s structure, forcing the player to repeat events from new perspectives, understanding the “enemy” more deeply each time.

The characters are not heroes; they are tragic figures in a play with no audience. Pascal, the pacifist machine, sees his village destroyed and is left with the unbearable choice of forgetting or dying. The final sequence, where the player must literally fight through the game’s credits—a bullet-hell segment against the very words of the development team—is a meta-commentary on breaking free from predetermined systems. The ultimate act, sacrificing one’s own save file to help a stranger achieve the same ending, is a powerful, selfless affirmation of hope and connection in the face of absolute despair. It is Yoko Taro’s answer to the nihilism his story wallows in: meaning is found not in grand designs, but in empathy and sacrifice for others.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems: A Genre-Defying Chimeric Experience

NieR: Automata is a masterclass in ludonarrative harmony, where its gameplay systems are not separate from its story but are fundamental to telling it. It is an action-RPG that refuses to be pigeonholed.

• Core Combat Loop: PlatinumGames’ pedigree shines in the flawless combat. It is a fluid, stylish ballet of destruction. Players control 2B, 9S, or A2, each with distinct styles: 2B’s balanced heavy and light attacks, 9S’s reliance on hacking (which shifts gameplay into a top-down shoot ’em up mini-game), and A2’s berserker mode. The ability to equip two weapon types simultaneously and chain combos between them provides immense depth. The Pod support system offers constant ranged fire and special attacks, customizable for different strategies.
• The Chip System: This is the game’s RPG heart. Instead of traditional armor, characters are customized with “Plug-in Chips” that grant abilities—from increased attack power to auto-dodge functions—each consuming a portion of a limited memory capacity. This system is brilliantly diegetic; it makes sense within the world that androids would upgrade their software this way. It allows for deep customization, from pure combat builds to ones that automate gameplay entirely on Easy mode.
• Genre Fluidity: The game’s most celebrated innovation is its seamless shifting of perspectives and genres. One moment you’re in a third-person action game, the next the camera shifts to a side-scrolling platformer, then a top-down bullet-hell shooter, and even a text-based adventure game. These shifts are not gimmicks; they constantly refresh the experience and are often used for profound narrative effect, such as the text-based sequences that delve into a character’s internal monologue.
• The World and Progression: The open world is desolate and beautiful, encouraging exploration not through Ubisoft-style icon saturation, but through environmental storytelling and poignant side quests. These quests are rarely simple fetch tasks; they are short, melancholic stories that explore the world’s themes—a machine looking for his brother, an android pondering the nature of love. Weapon upgrade stories provide additional lore, and the game features 26 endings, most of which are humorous “joke” endings that punish or reward unconventional actions.
• Death and Consequences: Dying has a tangible cost. Your body remains where you fell, along with all equipped chips. You have one chance to retrieve it; failure means losing those chips permanently. This system creates tense moments of retrieval and, with the online functionality, allows you to find and repair the bodies of other players, receiving messages of encouragement from their save data.

World-Building, Art & Sound: A Post-Apocalyptic Poem

The world of NieR: Automata is a character in itself. Earth is a graveyard of human civilization, with rusted skyscrapers jutting from deserts, abandoned amusement parks being reclaimed by nature, and crumbling cities overgrown with forest. The art direction, led by Akihiko Yoshida (of Final Fantasy and Bravely Default fame), is a stunning blend of stark realism and evocative anime styling. The androids’ designs are iconic—2B’s elegant dress and blindfold, 9S’s youthful appearance—and the machines are bizarrely endearing, often cobbled together from scrap metal into absurd forms.

The atmosphere is one of profound melancholy and eerie beauty. You are constantly aware of the absence of humanity, of a world that has moved on. This is compounded by the greatest achievement of the game: its soundtrack. Composed by Keiichi Okabe and his team at MONACA, the score is nothing short of legendary. Tracks like “Weight of the World” and “Amusement Park” are dynamic, changing based on gameplay context (adding vocals during combat, stripping down to piano during exploration). The music is an emotional guide, elevating every moment from simple combat to a soaring, tragic opera. It is a foundational pillar of the experience, universally acclaimed and arguably one of the greatest soundtracks in gaming history.

Reception & Legacy: From Cult Curiosity to Canonized Classic

Upon release, NieR: Automata was a critical darling. It holds a 90% critic score on PlayStation 4 and an 89% overall score on MobyGames, based on 76 reviews. Publications like USgamer and RPG Site awarded it perfect scores, praising its “deeply harrowing existentialist narrative” and calling it “Yoko Taro’s magnum opus.” Critics universally lauded its narrative ambition, combat, and soundtrack, though some noted technical issues like framerate drops and a bland open-world texture quality.

Commercially, it was a stunning success, far exceeding Square Enix’s expectations. It sold over 4.85 million copies by 2023, a monumental figure for a sequel to a previously niche title. Its reputation has only grown with time. The initially problematic PC port was eventually fixed with a fan-made mod and later an official “Game of the YoRHa” edition, bringing it to a wider audience.

Its legacy is immense. It proved that mid-budget, artist-driven games could achieve massive critical and commercial success. It brought Yoko Taro from a cult figure to a recognized auteur and sparked a renaissance for the Drakengard/NieR franchise, leading to the remaster of NieR Replicant.

More importantly, it influenced the industry’s approach to storytelling. Its use of multiple playthroughs as a narrative device, its seamless genre-blending, and its willingness to tackle profound philosophical themes head-on have inspired countless developers. Games like God of War (2018) and The Last of Us Part II exhibit a similar maturity in narrative, a trend for which Automata can claim significant credit. It stands as a benchmark for ludonarrative storytelling, a game where the act of playing is inseparable from the act of understanding.

Conclusion: An Essential, Unforgettable Experience

NieR: Automata is a paradox. It is a game about the meaninglessness of existence that ultimately affirms the value of life. It is a mechanically sublime action game that is also a deeply literary, philosophical text. It is brutally bleak yet profoundly beautiful.

It is not a perfect game. Its world can feel empty by design, its side quests sometimes repetitive, and its technical presentation occasionally shows its mid-budget roots. But these are minor quibbles in the face of its staggering ambition and overwhelming achievement. It is a game that demands emotional and intellectual engagement, rewarding the player with an experience that is heartbreaking, thought-provoking, and ultimately transcendent.

In the pantheon of video games, NieR: Automata secures its place not just as a great game, but as a vital work of art. It is a testament to the power of the medium to explore the deepest questions of the human condition. It is, quite simply, essential.