PlatinumGames developed NieR: Automata for Square Enix, releasing on PC via Steam in March 2017. Set in a far future where humanity has fled Earth after an alien invasion, the game follows androids 2B, 9S, and A2 as they wage a proxy war against machine lifeforms on behalf of their absent creators. It’s a third-person action RPG that blends hack-and-slash combat with bullet-hell sequences, side-scrolling sections, and genre shifts that refuse to let you settle into a comfortable rhythm.
Community reception has been intensely positive among those who saw it through to completion, which is an important qualifier. NieR: Automata demands multiple playthroughs to reveal its full story, and players who stopped after one run experienced a fundamentally different game than those who reached the final endings. The conversation around it tends to split along that line: people who bounced off early wondering what the fuss is about, and people who finished it insisting it changed how they think about games.
NieR: Automata’s Greatest Strength: Storytelling
Story sits as the centerpiece, earning that position by doing things that only an interactive medium can do. Themes of consciousness, purpose, and what it means to be alive run through every aspect of the game, from major plot beats to throwaway side quests. The narrative structure, which requires you to replay portions of the game from different perspectives, isn’t padding. Each route adds context that reframes what you thought you understood, and the later sections contain some of the most discussed moments in modern gaming.
PlatinumGames brought their signature combat expertise to the project. Fights are responsive, flashy, and satisfying at a mechanical level. Switching between weapon types mid-combo feels fluid, and the chip system that lets you customize your abilities adds a layer of build variety that rewards experimentation. Boss encounters, especially certain standout fights, deliver spectacle and challenge in equal measure.
The soundtrack deserves its own paragraph because players bring it up with the kind of reverence usually reserved for the greatest film scores. The music shifts between haunting vocal performances, driving electronic tracks, and quiet ambient pieces, and it consistently elevates every scene it accompanies. Many players cite the music as the element that first made them realize the game was doing something special.
Side quests contribute more than they initially appear to. What seems like routine fetch tasks early on gradually reveals stories about machine lifeforms trying to understand human emotions and behaviors. These smaller narratives feed back into the game’s larger philosophical questions and make the world feel like it has something to say in every corner.
Where NieR: Automata Falters
Square Enix’s PC port was notoriously poor at launch. Resolution issues, frame rate instability, and crashes plagued the original release for years. Square Enix eventually patched these problems, and the current version runs significantly better than the one early adopters dealt with. Players picking the game up now should have a much smoother experience, but the legacy of the bad port lingers in community discussions.
Open world design is the weakest structural element. It’s relatively small, and navigating it involves a lot of running through empty or sparsely populated areas. Fast travel points help once unlocked, but the spaces between them don’t offer much to discover. For a game with such strong storytelling, the world itself doesn’t do much environmental storytelling. It functions as a stage for the narrative rather than a destination worth exploring on its own.
Multiple playthroughs being required is the biggest point of division. The second route in particular, which retreads many of the same events from a different perspective, tests patience even among fans. Players who understand going in that Route C is where the game fully comes alive have an easier time pushing through, but the game itself doesn’t communicate this well. More than a few players have put it down during the second route, never reaching the content that earned the game its reputation.
Combat, while mechanically sound, doesn’t reach the depth of PlatinumGames’ best work in the genre. Standard encounters on normal difficulty can be handled by mashing attack buttons, and the abundance of healing items reduces the tension considerably. Higher difficulties address this to some degree, but the base experience can feel repetitive during extended play sessions.
What Stays With You for NieR: Automata
NieR: Automata’s greatest achievement is making the act of playing, replaying, and finishing a game part of its thematic argument. The final sequence does something that has been discussed, dissected, and celebrated in gaming communities for years, and it works precisely because you’ve invested the time to get there. It’s a game that earns its emotional climax through the structure of the experience itself, not just through cutscenes or dialogue.
That’s a hard thing to evaluate on a scorecard, because it means the game’s highest points are locked behind its most divisive design choices. The multiple playthroughs that frustrate some players are the exact mechanism that makes the ending land for others.
Should You Play NieR: Automata?
Players who care about narrative and are willing to invest time into a game that reveals itself slowly. If you’ve ever wanted a game that asks serious philosophical questions and weaves those questions into its gameplay rather than just its dialogue, NieR: Automata is one of the best examples. A controller is strongly recommended for the best combat experience.
Skip it if you need moment-to-moment gameplay to carry the experience on its own, or if the idea of replaying sections of a game to reach the real story sounds like bad design rather than deliberate structure. The game asks for patience and commitment, and the payoff only works if you’re willing to give both.
The Verdict on NieR: Automata
NieR: Automata is a game that uses its medium in ways few others have attempted, weaving philosophical questions about consciousness and purpose into its structure rather than just its dialogue. PlatinumGames delivered combat that feels great moment to moment, and the soundtrack alone justifies the purchase for many players. The requirement to play through the game multiple times will test your patience, and the open world never matches the quality of what fills it. But the payoff for seeing it through to the true ending is something that sticks with people long after the credits roll, and that’s not something most games can claim.