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The Narrative Mechanics of Posthumanism in NieR: Automata

Abstract

This article examines how posthumanism operates through the player-avatar relationship in NieR: Automata (Platinum Games, 2017). NieR: Automata takes place on a 120th century Earth and sees the player control three android soldiers who fight to retake the planet from an enigmatic force of alien machines on behalf of humanity. However, no humans appear in the game itself. As the war drags on in their absence, androids and machines alike struggle to construct new subjectivities from the fragments of human existence, with each attempt to mimic humanity or deify it ending in violent catastrophes. Through narrative mechanics that build affinity between the player and their avatars, NieR: Automata encourages the player to enact a posthuman subjectivity that allows the androids to face the full—and ultimately hopeful—truth of a post-anthropocentric world.