As well as huge robot asses.

Major spoilers for NieR: Automata incoming.

You ever hear that phrase, “Just keep playing, it gets better I promise,” when you’re telling someone you’re just not getting along with a game? That plea to keep going, because if you do, there’ll be that moment you'll look back and be glad you persevered. While it’s a gamble that doesn’t always pay off, with me and NieR: Automata it completely and utterly did. At the beginning though, I was really struggling to push through the bland mission design, a difficulty curve that ping-ponged wildly up and down, and one of the shallower fighting systems PlatinumGames have done.

It didn’t help that the visuals were feeling the constraints of a slightly slimmer budget than most other AAA titles. Gander at a side-by-side comparison of NieR: Automata and Horizon Zero Dawn (which came out at roughly the same time), and there’s no contest between what one looks better. Automata just lacks that extra polish, both in its presentation and in its gameplay. Suffice to say, it was crushingly disappointing. But I pressed on, and when the ending – the true, true ending that is – finally bid its last farewell, NieR: Automata had the personal accolade of being my favourite game of this generation.

I know it’s a tad early to make statements like that, considering next-gen is months away, but I honestly can’t think of anything that could possibly usurp Automata. The game literally had me staring with mouth open in disbelief at certain parts – the start of the third route being one of them. Towards the final hours of Automata, I was completely spellbound, itching to find out what was going to happen next, so much so that I actually had some anxiety about finishing the game, as I wondered how it was all going to end.

What makes the ending so sublime is how the game builds towards it, because Automata runs in opposition of the player’s expectation of narrative progression. You know how it goes in most games: you arrive in a new area, get told about the big bad, destroy said big bad and save the day. However, in Automata, for all of your struggles and determination to fight back the enemy, your actions amount to nothing. Friendly places and people get obliterated regardless of your efforts, with the land becoming more and more desolate as a result. And ultimately, you start to feel like a band aid being applied to the bloody stump of a severed limb, with defeat not just being a possibility, but an inevitability.

Even your grand task to reclaim Earth for humanity was impossible from the start, since it is revealed that the last humans died a long, long time ago. This leaves 2B, 9S, A2 and the rest of the Androids without any way to complete their purpose, even if they do win against the Machines. And to make matters even more dire, the entire war is nothing but a controlled exercise orchestrated by an AI program that seeks progress through conflict. Neither could claim victory because the AI would just bolster the losing side to make sure the war continued. So in the end, it all was completely pointless.

Through of all its flaws, it is Automata’s ability to convey the emotion of hopelessness that proves to be its strongest skill. It perfectly manages to impart what it is like to have depression (for me personally anyway), with that looming darkness that makes everything seem so insurmountable, creating a dismally empty world. Yoko Taro is certainly no stranger to depression, and it really shows in his work, especially in the way he beats the player down and down again. And while there is levity in his games to be sure (that mackerel part will always be fondly remembered), you can always expect a couple of hefty emotional punches to the gut along with it.

And speaking of hefty emotional gut punches, the final scene of Automata leaves pretty much the entire cast dead, which would be par for the course in a Yoko title, if it was left there. However, you are given a choice as the credits roll to engage in one last fight to go back and save everyone. Even now as I write this, it reads back as hokey, but given the previous hours of crushing nihilism, it is a moment that Automata completely earns. What follows is easily one of the most touching sections of a video game I’ve ever played, as well as one that expertly acknowledges the fourth wall without clumsily breaking it.

As you battle the actual credits of the game, most players will find themselves hitting a roadblock, as they are mercilessly killed over and over again. As the deaths mount up, messages from other players start to filter in, offering their encouragement and eventually their help. It’s a wonderfully uplifting moment as the music swells and aid arrives to overcome the seemingly impossible.

Despite the game’s reputation for revelling in the nightmare that is the inherent meaninglessness of existence, Automata’s final message is one of tentative optimism. Just as how the Androids start to find a purpose in living for each other when their designated one proves unachievable, the game wants to let you know that despite how futile it may all seem, you are not alone. Automata isn’t afraid to show you that life can be horribly unfair, and that failure can be determined by forces that are out of your control, but it also shows you that these traumatic events aren’t the be-all and end-all.

My favourite thing about the finale is how open-ended it is, leaving it up to the player’s imagination to decide the fate of the characters. I know that during a NieR concert, a scene was performed that continued past ending of the game, but I always thought this was unnecessary since it removed much of the ambiguity. I greatly prefer the outcome the game gives you, which plays into that tentative optimism I mentioned before. While the game doesn’t give the protagonists a definitively happy conclusion, it does leave hope for one – and sometimes hope is exactly what we need.

Also, here is the Commander as a cat: