On the fifth anniversary of Nier: Automata’s launch, Gabe Gurwin displays on optimism and overcoming despair.Content warning: In addition to main spoilers for Nier: Automata, this piece offers closely with psychological sickness and mentions suicide.In 2017, my life was, at the least on paper, going pretty effectively. I had graduated school the earlier May, I had regular work in my profession discipline, and I had a supportive household and associate who wished to see me succeed. But the factor about despair is its full irrationality. It wasn’t unhappiness, however nothingness, that pervaded my day-to-day existence. Nothing appeared to matter, from sustaining relationships to having fun with my hobbies. It was unusual, then, that Nier: Automata–a sport which turns 5 at the moment and consists largely of battles in opposition to alien robots and exploring a post-apocalyptic Earth–managed to assist in giving me hope for the long run.It took me years earlier than I even realized that had occurred, and some extra earlier than I used to be in a position to perceive why. Nier: Automata’s brutal exterior could seem like it might ship somebody right into a spiral of unhappiness, however its closing message of unrelenting hopefulness within the face of ache is simply what the hole, depressing me wanted to listen to. “Yes, I feel terrible today. I felt terrible yesterday, and there’s a very good chance I’ll feel terrible tomorrow. But there’s also a chance that one day I’ll feel better, and I’ll need to keep trying to see that day.”Empty. Drab. Pointless. Something arduous to convey to somebody who has by no means suffered from despair is the monotony it usually includes. Doing nothing however the essentials–and not caring about doing something else–becomes routine. Many different motion video games have entertained this haze with really senseless motion, participating via their repetition to these successfully sleepwalking via life. But Nier: Automata performs with this idea with the sudden style shifts it employs early on. Flying shoot-’em-up segments give solution to on-foot hack-and-slash, side-scrolling platforming, and finally even retro-style arcade and textual content journey. They occur continuously, and sometimes with no warning. “Oh, I guess we’re doing this now. Well, that’s fine.” It’s forcibly breaking apart the routine, like getting kicked out of the home to go for a stroll after spending hours enjoying video games and napping.These moments typically occurred when Nier: Automata was going again via the identical narrative content material, as effectively. After seeing the credit roll, which is successfully about midway via the sport chronologically, you start once more as 9S, however there are main variations between the 2 arcs. 2B’s extra easy segments distinction with 9S’s experimental and weird ones. The shifts occurred in the midst of a battle that was being waged by two sides whose masters had lengthy perished. 2B knew this. Her route’s gameplay mirrored this in its impassive strategy to every enemy encounter. It was the bright-eyed optimist 9S who was oblivious to the reality and continued to attempt in earnest.As a younger little one oblivious to the world–to the idea of being something however completely satisfied and the concept that life may very well be unfair–I used to be most likely the identical method. If we attempt our greatest, issues are sure to work out… proper? Of course, all of us be taught that is not how life normally works, and when 9S finally uncovers the reality surrounding his mission and its pointlessness, he would not precisely take it effectively. He enters a harmful cycle, discovering an enemy in rival android A2 but additionally seeing little motive for himself to exist. I discovered myself targeted nearly fully on his story. To me, 9S grew to become the protagonist of the sport, and the one I most clearly recognized with. I’m removed from the one one to make this connection, with Sam Prell at GamesRadar having performed so shortly after Nier: Automata launched in 2017. The expertise gave Sam the nudge to go see a therapist and obtain less-allegorical assist. And it assured me I wasn’t stuffed with it for seeing the connection.Little is at it first seems in Nier: Automata, particularly the enemies.What 9S went via wasn’t easy teenage angst after realizing his dad and mom had been uncool. What I noticed with 9S was a lot nearer to my very own anxiousness, despair, and later OCD, all of which made it so I could not take into consideration anything. Finding a solution to numb the ache grew to become my major purpose every day, which is about as wholesome because it sounds. These psychological struggles upended my life and made it troublesome to discover a second of solace, a lot much less a higher which means or purpose, and an excessive model of that is on show as 9S devolves right into a harmful power hellbent on A2’s demise.2B, performing undercover to destroy 9S at any time when he realized the reality so the pointless battle cycle might repeat once more, was not the enemy, however a protector maintaining his gentle from burning out. Only by forgetting his reminiscences might he be complete once more.If solely it had been that simple, in fact. Our reminiscences form us. I can not neglect my experiences, nor can I neglect how completely satisfied, empathetic, and outgoing I used to be as somewhat child. I am unable to take away my want to really feel that method once more. But director Yoko Taro and the Nier: Automata growth group addressed this as a result of repeatedly reverting 9S again to his previous self earlier than he realized of humanity’s demise wasn’t working. He would, by nature of his personal curiosity and focus, all the time finally discover out the reality.Likewise, even when my life had gone in another way, I nearly definitely nonetheless would have suffered from psychological well being issues. It runs in my household. Having a greater good friend circle or not getting bullied would have helped, however the forked roads would finally nonetheless converge. Looking again with remorse solved nothing; against this, it solely made me really feel worse.It’s simple to see Nier: Automata as a pessimistic or nihilistic sport, so I wasn’t shocked to see discussion board posts speaking about how gamers discovered the sport “depressing” or that they felt “depressed” after ending it. The story includes the loss of life of family members, the long-hidden extinction of the human race, and most disturbingly, the mass suicide of child-like robots as a result of they could not bear to dwell in a world the place worry existed. Seeing all of this violence, hatred, and distress would make it simple to jot down all of it off because the work of an edgelord who merely wished to make one thing darkish or tousled.

That could not be farther from the case, nevertheless. After all of that torment leaves your entire foremost forged useless and there being seemingly no level for this android race to proceed present in any respect, the sport’s post-credits scene fully reframes the narrative. Yes, time after time, loss of life after loss of life, nothing has labored to attain an enduring peace, and it is fairly potential that may proceed indefinitely. But it is also potential, via sheer power of will or luck, {that a} totally different future exists. If we quit now, we’re by no means going to search out it. Crucially, the sport would not present stated future, however it crops the seed of hope in our minds.As that second pale and my save knowledge was routinely deleted, I knew Nier: Automata was the most effective sport I had ever performed. That unrelenting, irrational optimism–foolish optimism, to a cynic–was precisely what I wanted to be proven to me. I wanted to know that I might really feel higher finally, regardless of my mind telling me that all of it appeared meaningless. That all of it was meaningless. Maybe. But perhaps not. I’d wish to say that via therapy and a distinct outlook on life, my despair went away endlessly. It did not. In reality, the catalyst to jot down this was as a lot the return of that feeling because it was Nier: Automata’s five-year anniversary. But as the sport helped me understand the primary time, my future is what I make of it. This could be a unending cycle, however these moments of darkness may very well be few and much between.”Maybe if I keep believing, my dreams will come to life.”I’ll maintain believing.