Nier:Automata — How Deep Can a Story Go?
Nier: Automata is an action/adventure RPG that takes place thousands of years in the future on an earth that has been overrun by machine like creatures created by an ancient race of aliens. As the player, you follow two androids created by YoRHa, which is a resistance group created to take back earth for the few humans living on the moon; 2B a combat model android and 9S, a scanner model android.
Nier: Automata is interactive in the same way every video game is. The user takes control of a digital character and controls them in their progression through a story. This game has the usual RPG tropes such as upgrading weapons, skills and abilities, but it approaches it in a unique way. Being that you are an android, many visual and gameplay elements reflect this. Instead of upgrading abilities, you can insert ‘Plug-In’ chips into your android’s memory bank, which you can freely swap in and out to adapt your character to any type of situation. Furthermore, the machines you fight have a variety of ways to disrupt your internals and create an adverse fighting environment. Some enemies blast out EMPs which can disable your close combat abilities, and even your ability to jump, run and see.
The uniqueness of this game comes mostly from its new approach towards narrative. Many recent big title games focus on a singular story and making the visuals shine. The interactivity is typically elements involving upgrading your character.
Nier: Automata does have gorgeous graphics but it goes further thanks to a narrative that creates an immensely immersive experience. Depending on how much time the player invests in the game, they can unlock a maximum of 26 different endings to the story. At first this seems dull. Who would want to play the same game 26 times over? But each ending offers gameplay and narrative components that are distinctly unique from any other endings.
In the first play-through, you control 2B, the combat model android. 2B is a fighting machine. Much of the ‘A’ story focuses on combat, and showcases the sleek and polished fighting system that Nier:Automata has crafted. You get the main gist of the story in this play-through.
And then story ‘B’ starts. In the ‘B’ play-through, you play as 9S, the scanner model, who is strangely curious for a machine and is interested in human behaviour. The first thing you notice immediately, is that 9S is nowhere near as efficient in combat as 2B. He wields his weapons clumsily, but as a Scanner model, he has a unique skill. By pressing the button that would normally initiate a heavy attack for 2B, 9S instead hacks into his enemies’ system and can choose to detonate his enemy or have them become an ally. While you are still forced to fight, the player has to alter their approach to combat drastically compared to 2B.
Another big change between the ‘A’ and ‘B’ story, is that there are frequent cut-scenes narrated by 9S that document the history of the machines. A huge theme in this game is what it means to be alive or human. Throughout the first two stories, you run into machines that imitate human behaviour, from throwing parties, to making love and also taking care of babies. 9S narrates these cut-scenes in an inquisitive way and makes the player think about how the machines have adapted, and whether it’s worth eliminating all of them. This is a moral struggle that 2B and 9S, who are supposed to be devoid of emotion, develop throughout the stories.
Things change even more when you reach playthrough ‘C’, which is a sequel of the first 2 acts. Immediately after the final boss fight, YoRHa makes an all out offensive against the machines. But the machines manage to infect the YoRHa command centre, turning every android, save for 9S and 2B, to the machine’s side.
This game is only as immersive as the player makes it. The developers have created a narrative style that promotes a direct exchange of the player’s interactivity for a more immersive gameplay experience. You can play the game through a couple of times to enjoy the action elements of it, but the player needs to take agency to uncover the full scope of the narrative. Each playthrough, information is revealed that wasn’t in the previous story, which changes the player’s entire outlook on the game. As the user interacts with more and more NPCs and explores the different endings, the full story of what happened to earth begins to unfold. The narrative becomes extremely immersive, full of cliff hangers, but it is up to the user to interact for a long enough time to uncover the full breadth of the story.
