NieR: Automata, Endings, and Existential Dread

(This piece assumes you have completed NieR: Automata, and as such will spoil the game for anyone that hasn’t. Please read responsibly)

Before I start, I want to make it known that this is my first Yoko Taro game, and as such, I don’t have the same kind of knowledge about what to expect from a game he directs. The assumptions in this piece are, of course, subjective, but more importantly, from the perspective of someone that really had no idea what they were getting themselves into.

NieR: Automata makes no attempt to hide its existential nature. The opening lines are about killing God. Every scenario you encounter is filled with existential questions of life, death, and meaning. It pressures the characters of its universe to question their existence, their reason for living, their purpose. The meaning behind continuing. But it only ever poses that question to its inhabitants. The player is never asked why they continue. But the game does not simply leave the player be. Rather, the game instills a sense of existential dread in the player, not through realization of their own mortality or lack of purpose, but through the futility of everything they’ve done in the world of Automata.

Automata features five “main” endings, achieved through four stories. While most games have endings ranging from worst to best, often in the order players are expected to achieve them, Automata almost completely subverts this. I would argue that Ending A is the happiest ending in the game, but perhaps only because of the lack of context given to the player. Through the other four endings, you learn a lot about the world and characters that frames the entire initial ending sequence very differently.

Automata excels at toying with player expectation of narrative structure and the structure of its endings. It takes the moment of defeat and powerlessness for the characters and drives it one step further. Then it takes it another step further. The player is always assuming that things are going to get better after this part. What sets Automata apart from other games is that, until the very end, it never gets better.

Ending A sees 2B and 9S defeat Adam and Eve, effectively crippling the machines’ network, the one thing that the machines have over the androids. While it doesn’t show the aftermath, it is assumed that this would be the turning point in their seemingly neverending war, and that this will allow the androids to wipe the machines out and allow the humans, stationed on the moon, to finally return to their home planet. Though 9S initially seems to be lost, he lives on through a machine’s body, and uploads his consciousness data to the YoRHa bunker.

Ending B is almost completely the same as Ending A, save for one scene in which there are holograms of two twin girls standing behind 2B and 9S. What separates this ending from the first, however, is context. Through playing as 9S, we learn that machines have what he refers to as “Treasures”, one thing that they hold on to or aspire to. This explains the actions of many of the machines throughout the story that is, for the most part, the same as 2B’s story.

Of course, the real change in context is regarding the humans on the moon. Shortly before the final battle, we discover that the one thing the androids are fighting for, securing Earth so that humans can return, is a lie. Humans are extinct. They were wiped out in the aftermath of the previous game. Their genetic data resides on the moon, but no living humans remain.

With this knowledge, the happy Ending A becomes a bittersweet ending. Sure, the androids will likely gain the upper hand after this crushing blow to the machines. But what purpose does it serve? What are the androids fighting for, if not for the humans? 2B and 9S killed many machines with thought processes and consciousnesses on an equal level to theirs, arguably superior in the case of Adam and Eve, for what is now revealed to be no reason at all.

Though this ending is not as happy, the third chapter sets up a continuation of the first two. In a post-credits preview, the androids are gearing up for a massive strike upon the machines now that their network is severely crippled. The player knows the story is not over, and are lead to believe that the end of the war with machines is coming, and with it, resoultion to the threads left hanging by the previous endings.

The initial sequences of chapter three set the player up to believe that this will be an all-out strike against the machines which will ultimately end in their destruction once and for all. The scene climaxes with the YoRHa forces surrounded by machines who bust out a new weapon, EMP blasts. Of course, the savvy player should expect that it wouldn’t be this easy. Nothing this late in the game will be this easy.

But then Automata takes it two steps further.

First, the player is lead to believe that the androids are infected with a virus causing them some kind of suffering. 9S is shown to be able to hack into 2B and remove the virus, and the player is left with a glimmer of hope that this can be saved.

Then the second step. The androids stop writhing in pain. They laugh. They stand up. They look at you. Their eyes turn red, just as machines’ eyes do when they are attacking. There is nothing you can do to save them.

At this point the player will likely expect that things are either going to get better from here, or will get at least a little worse until the protagonists can figure out how to solve this. Of course this can be solved. We haven’t even gotten the final ending. There has to be a “best ending” in store for us.

The dread starts to truly show its face upon returning to the bunker and realizing that this virus is not limited to the androids hit by the EMP. YoRHa is finished. You can’t save anybody. This is truly it. The machines have won.

The scenes following your escape from the bunker are the crushing final blow to the happy ending of the first chapter. With 2B’s death, everything you worked so hard for in the first chapter is gone. There are no humans. There is no war. Every YoRHa battle model is dead or corrupted. 2B and 9S cannot be happy together. Everything you did was pointless. Everything you accomplished is meaningless.

The game’s theme of existentialism extends to the player through dread. Angst. You continued the game to see the happy ending. You wanted to see the resolution of 2B and 9S’ story. Automata instead gave you their destruction. The player’s hope is completely crushed. The game reveals itself not as an uplifting story of war in the future, but as a tragedy. You had every opportunity to see this coming from the moment the second chapter revealed the truth about the purpose of YoRHa. You had every chance to stop.

Any other game would leave it here. The final scenes would roll of 2B’s death at the hands of A2, they would fight, ultimately ending in their mutually assured destruction. But NieR: Automata isn’t finished kicking your sad corpse. You have to live with this, just as everyone else in its universe does.

What happens over the next few hours is a complete reversal of roles between 9S and A2. A2, initially shown to be a crass, uncaring, and angry loner, quickly develops a relationship with Pascal. While their interactions are awkward and cold, as soon as A2 perceives Pascal to be in trouble, she quickly runs to his aid.

9S, on the other hand, is completely dejected and lost. While he initially questioned the purpose of fighting machines after learning of humanity’s fate, his purpose is reignited. He does not care about anyone. He does not care for himself. The only thing on his mind is killing and destruction. The death of every machine he comes across is the only thing that he believes will ease the pain. So he kills. He screams. He does not care about why. He assumes the role that A2 played in earlier scenes; a careless murderer of every machine he comes across.

One of the final twists of the third chapter, the revelation that YoRHa was always meant to end the way it did, almost feels like it doesn’t matter at that point. The entire purpose of YoRHa’s existence was to be destroyed. They, just as humans, lived to die. They were not brought to life for any reason beyond simply to die later on as a part of a grand plan to fabricate the existence of humans on the moon. But at this point, the player is lost. Not confused, but gone. You already know everything was futile. You just didn’t know the extent of it.

The chapter ends with the reveal that 2B was actually another YoRHa model, 2E, designed solely to kill the 9S models that learned of the humans’ extinction. It is the final kick in the teeth to your hope of some kind of resolution. Some kind of revelation that things will work out. 2B’s entire existence was antithetical to 9S. She was always there to kill him. Everything was futile. There was no relationship between 2B and 9S. Finally the game ends with the deaths of A2 and 9S.

The player is crushed.

The happy ending they achieved hours ago is completely gone. Torn away from your grasp.

There is no silver lining.

There was no purpose to it all.

Everything will end.

Happiness is a fleeting comfort in a sea of dread.

Then the final chapter begins.

The player is devastated at the loss of everything they worked so hard for. Everything they achieved is gone. Yet, they continue. They know things will somehow get worse. They’re ready for the true ending to curb stomp their hopes and dreams of a happy ending into dust.

But that never comes.

Instead, the characters that seemed to do so little beyond give analytical data and humorous one-off lines with no self awareness develop a conscience. They pause the credits roll from the fourth ending. They reveal their true roles and intentions.

And then, they fight the credits themselves. They fight this menace that should have marked the tragic end of this story. They refuse.

In a sequence that, while underwhelming in my opinion, was very memorable, they fight every name and word that appears as they are hit with a barrage of bullet hell patterns. And more likely than not, they die. Over and over.

They are asked to accept the futility of it all. They are asked to give up and die.

They refuse.

Eventually, in one of the most oddly powerful moments of the game, they are offered help. By other players. By the hopeful few that refuse to let this be the way the game ends.

Suddenly, you don’t seem to die any more. You lose a few allies in the process, but more and more come to your aid. You don’t let the credits roll. This is not where your story will end.

You refuse.

After an extremely long fight against every last bit of the credits, you get one final cutscene.

The pods are rebuilding 2B and 9S. Though their friends are gone, though their entire existence was fated to end in death, though the machines still live, they will forge on. They will find their own purpose. Outside of living for someone else. Away from living to kill. They will be reborn together, and will live as they please.

The player gets their happy ending. The characters you’ve grown so close to will continue to live on.

Will it be a happy ending for them, if all of their comrades and friends are dead? You don’t get to know. It’s not for you to know. Will they kill more machines? Will they live with the memory-wiped Pascal, if he even exists in your timeline? That’s not for you to decide anymore. 2B and 9S will find their own reasons to live.

It’s their future now. Free of YoRHa. Free of war.

Free of you.