The most interesting case of this comes as the machines don religious outfits and begin to pray to a central machine. One baffling sequence has the barrel shaped machines awkwardly emulating sex. Once faced with this realisation, the machines in Automata begin to mythologise and reenact the ancient culture of humans - not realising they’ve already done so through the act of violence. The knowledge that life, at least in this game, is an endless cycle of war to no end. The high-octane melodrama of the JRPG dissipates.

It’s a crushing revelation in the context of the game. After a couple more hours you find out the head of the androids already knew this, they just didn’t want everyone else to lose meaning in their existence. After countless battles, upgrades, side-quests and other JRPG vignettes, it’s revealed that both the humans and aliens have long been extinct. Nier Automata sees ‘androids’ and ‘machines’ fighting for dominion over Earth on behalf of exiled humans on the moon and aliens that preside over the planet. So, what could that possibly have to do with Nier Automata, Square Enix’s fan-favourite action-RPG? Everything, is the answer.ĭirector Yoko Taro has long dealt with big, philosophical ideas clothed in whacky JRPG goofiness, and Automata sprints with that idea like the world is ending, because it is ending. Rooney is a famous Irish novelist and her third novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You, primarily follows Alice and Eileen as they begin new relationships and deal with midlife crises. The synapses in my brain were able to connect the two during a 3am overthink and what I found was, weirdly enough, that they have exactly the same answer. In times of existential dread we turn to art, aka food for the soul, for answers to the question, where do we find meaning in a meaningless world? And what I found was that Platinum Games’ Nier Automata and Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You both have an answer to that question. Watch on YouTube Nier Automata launch trailer. Finding true meaning, at this point in time, has never felt as essential as it does now when we’re faced with the meaningless black hole of a blue screen in one hand and the collapse of the Earth in the hands of, I don’t know, God? Scrolling through words that are at once world-ending, then hilarious renders all of it a little null. My brain constantly flips between headlines that read “World War III imminent”, to “New Mouthful mode in Kirby”, all while my face reacts like nothing has happened. “I looked at the internet for too long today and started feeling depressed.”

Maybe that’s just my human brain and its inability to think broadly, but there’s something about the digital era we’re living in that makes this central question feel more depressing than I imagine it would if I were a farmer in 1800s Cyprus, frolicking in the sun and bathing on the shores. How do we find meaning in the modern world? It’s probably a question that every conscious generation has grappled with going as far back as, well, who knows? But it seems like a more pertinent, gripping question now than it ever has been. This piece contains spoilers for Nier Automata and Beautiful World, Where Are You.

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