"Everything that lives is designed to end.
We are perpetually trapped...in a never-ending spiral of life and death.
Is this a curse?
Or some kind of punishment?
I often think about the god who blessed us with this cryptic puzzle...and wonder if we'll ever have a chance to kill him."
We are perpetually trapped...in a never-ending spiral of life and death.
Is this a curse?
Or some kind of punishment?
I often think about the god who blessed us with this cryptic puzzle...and wonder if we'll ever have a chance to kill him."
— 2B's Opening Monologue
NieR: Automata is a stylish action role-playing game developed by PlatinumGames and published by Square Enix for the PlayStation 4 and Steam, and later Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. It is set in the same universe as the Drakengard spinoff NieR, but Automata is set in its distant future and the original game is not required viewing.
The year is 11945 A.D. For thousands of years, mankind has been locked in a seemingly endless war against an Alien Invasion and their armies of "machine lifeforms". The last few remnants of humanity have been forced to take shelter on the Moon, from which they deploy intelligent android troops to liberate Earth in their stead.
To break this stalemate, humanity creates a new organisation called YoRHa, comprising their most advanced android models and military technology to date. Stationed upon an orbital base called the Bunker, the YoRHa-model androids work tirelessly as the new frontline against the machine lifeforms occupying Earth.
The game follows 2B ("Number 2, Type-B", voiced by Yui Ishikawa / Kira Buckland), an enigmatic but dedicated YoRHa combat model who is assigned to a plucky intelligence operative named 9S ("Number 9, Type-S", voiced by Natsuki Hanae / Kyle McCarley). Together, they are sent to the ruined surface of Earth to investigate the strange activities of the machine lifeforms, some of whom appear to be mimicking aspects of human civilisation. Along the way, they encounter A2 ("Type-A, Number 2", voiced by Ayaka Suwa / Cherami Leighnote ), a cynical, nihilistic prototype attacker android and precursor to 2B who deserted YoRHa after being sent with her squad on a Suicide Mission in which she was the Sole Survivor and is now wanted dead by their Commander.
The development team consisted of Drakengard creator and director Yoko Taro, producer Yosuke Saito (Dragon Quest X, Drakengard), and composer Keiichi Okabe (Drakengard, NieR), who reprised their roles from the previous games in the series, as well as PlatinumGames co-producer Atsushi Inaba (Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Bayonetta 2), Square Enix artist / character designer Akihiko Yoshida (Final Fantasy XIV), and lead game designer Takahisa Taura. The goal was to make a new NieR game true to the spirit of the original with better gameplay. The games also have a series of side story plays known as YoRHa, serving as both predecessors (in its initial installments) and prequels (in later installments) to the main story.
Trailers: Announcement trailer
- Gameplay Trailer - Second Gameplay Trailer
The PS4 version was released in 2017 on February 23rd in Japan, March 7th in the USA, and March 10th in Europe, while the PC version was released on March 17th. Following this, it was made available digitally on the Xbox One and Windows 10/11 as the BECOME AS GODS Edition on June 26th, 2018. The game was re-released on the PS4 and PC with all DLC and pre-order content included as the Game of the YoRHa Edition on February 26th, 2019. A Nintendo Switch version, including all of the DLC minus the pre-order content, subtitled The End of YoRHa Edition, was released on October 6th, 2022.
An anime adaptation was announced on the game's 5th anniversary. At Aniplex Online Fest in September 2022, the studio was announced to be A-1 Pictures and the first half begin airing in January 2023 with a full title of NieR: Automata Ver 1.1a. The second half of the anime premiered in July 2024. Every single cast member from the game reprises their role in the anime, although the plot does differ in many cases.
Beware of spoilers, both marked and unmarked.
Become as tropes:
Tropes Unique to Ver 1.1a
For tropes that only apply to the anime adaptation Nier Automata Ver 1.1a.
- Adaptational Badass:
- The cannibal machines seen at the end of Ending A in the game were a little creepy but not much more than a minor nuisance in the game. In Episode 11 of the anime, they are unbelievably fast and maneuverable, and Lily states a single one killed half the men in her camp. 2B goes up against three of them, and it takes using a decoy hologram program and a new experimental sword with a wide-area beam attack for her to defeat them.
- A2's Berserker Mode is mostly an Awesome, but Impractical ability in the game, with the vast majority of players only using it when it is first introduced in the battle against Hegel and never touching it again after that. In Episode 20, Berserker Mode is so powerful it enables A2 to fight toe-to-toe against a giant Goliath-type Engels unit.
- 9S is a significantly more powerful physical combatant in the endgame of the series and does not rely on hacking to defeat his enemies, unlike the game. In Episode 23 he easily tears through the squad of 2B copies with sheer brute force, and in Episode 24, when the logic virus infection disables all his limiters and any sense of self-preservation, he is able to match the speed and power of A2's Berserker Mode and fight her on equal terms.
- Adaptation Distillation:
- In the anime, the game's battle with Grün is merged with the battle against Adam (who replaces Eve as the final boss of the first act). Instead of fighting in a One-Winged Angel form like in the game, he becomes giant kaiju who's defeated with YorHa's orbital laser, just like Grün.
- Just like in the game, Simone's motivation for her actions is trying to make Jean-Paul notice her. But Jean-Paul himself is Demoted to Extra, so his rude personality and his mistreatment of Simone and other female fans are not shown in the anime.
- Much of A2's early Route C quests running around all over the place are cut or condensed. There is no Hegel battle in the desert for her to do since 9S destroyed those machines in Episode 16 and the issue with her broken fuel pump causes her to become immobilized, so the game sidequests of her doing errands for the villager machines are cut in favor of her being carted around the village and getting to know the inhabitants all at once due to having no choice in the matter. Finally, she only needs to make one visit to the Resistance Camp since Lily shows up at Pascal's village and takes A2 back to the camp herself where they replace her fuel pump.
- The events concerning the Resource Recovery Unit known as the "God Box" are greatly condensed for the anime. 9S does not need to fight his way to the top because the unit comes to him instead, and there is no big battle against an infected Operator 21O since she had already been killed off when 9S first approached the Tower. The only thing in the God Box is that it has recovered 2B's crashed Flight Unit and makes 9S listen to her final message for him as psychological torment; this was missable content in the game, as it requires the player to go off the beaten path to find the wreckage of the Flight Unit in the Flooded City area.
- In episode 23, A2 and 9S's battle against Ko-shi and Ro-shi respectively and the Machine Network turning against itself when arguing how to use the androids for their evolution happens simultaneously, rather than A2's fight with the Red Girls happening halfway through her fight against Ko-shi. This is represented by Ko-shi and Ro-shi going from hunting the androids to fighting each other, with the two machines killing each other just as the terminal breaks apart from different ideologies.
- Adaptation Expansion:
- The anime expands on events that don't focus around 2B and 9S's journey, such as the exploits of various Machines as they struggle with their attempts to attain their own humanity, as well as the backstory of Lily and the rivalry and mistrust between the Resistance and YoRHa. In Episode 13, the Memory Cage short story is adapted.
- The first major change is that Anemone is not the leader of the Resistance. Instead, it is Lily, with episode 6 showing she survived the events of the Stage Play. As for Anemone's fate, it is left uncertain after her Last Stand with No. 21, but she is presumed dead as Lily is established as the only known Resistance survivor of that mission. Episode 17 further expands upon this and confirms they all perished between then and the present. Though the fate of Rose's squadron, barring Rose herself, remains unseen.
- Jackass's introduction is moved to be right when Lily is; and she takes 2B and 9S to the gate via truck instead of already being there when the player meets her. Her Establishing Character Moment from there is given an added moment of her speeding on through the gate in said truck after the explosion.
- The Reveal about the aliens is postponed; their ships don't show up at all. This time, Adam built a replica of Popola's library, then showed copies of the alien corpses to 2B there.
- Adam tells 2B that humanity has gone extinct, just like the aliens have, though it's unclear whether she believes him. This scene is adapted from the novelization of the story, which tells us she doesn't believe him and considers it to be enemy propaganda. In the game, 2B never learns about the fate of humanity before she dies. Episode 15 then begins with a lengthy monologue from 2B showing that she knew all along that humanity was dead, but she chose to keep fighting in hopes of a future where she would be able to have a life with 9S in peace.
- Eve is killed before Adam instead of the other way around.
- Episode 13 adapts the "Amnesia" sidequest from Route B with significant changes to it. Jackass is not involved at all, 2B & 9S find the broken Pod in another building instead of it laying next to the quest-giver, and said quest-giver does not go Laughing Mad like in the game, but commits suicide by throwing herself off a building. Later, the scene when 2B & 9S meet Emil in the commercial building happens, but after Emil runs off, 2B moves to carry out her kill order. 9S hacks her to paralyze her, but Pod 153 betrays him and fixes 2B, and it ends when they both stab each other, although only 2B survives her injury. The final twist is that everything in the episode up until the last few minutes was actually a Whole Episode Flashback consisting of the Commander reviewing 2B's records of previous executions of 9S, which means both Amnesia and the incident with meeting Emil happened a long time ago with a previous incarnation of 9S instead of during the regular course of Routes A/B.
- Episode 14 adapts the start of Route C, starting with 9S coordinating a team of Scanners to hack and weaken the enemy. Rather than the Logic Virus seemingly starting when a group of Machines hit 2B and other combatants with an EMP, it's instead the already infected Scanners using their newly-acquired Goliaths to send out a wide-spread EMP and virus pulse to infect anyone without proper shielding. This not only includes the YoHRa units on the ground but a few resistance members.
- Episode 15 makes a few changes to the destruction of the Bunker sequence. After 2B and 9S transfer their data back, they find the Commander laying unconscious in the control room, thus she never accuses them of being virus-infected traitors. When the infected Operators attack, Pod 042 uses a Flight Unit to blow open a hole in the wall, sucking them out into space while 2B, 9S, and the Commander use an emergency elevator to escape. On the way to the hangar, they fight only a single YoRHa android (as opposed to over a dozen in the game): Operator 6O, who is surprisingly killed by the Commander when she stabs her with a neck knife that had previously seemed to be just a decoration necklace.
- Episode 16 also has some changes to the events of 2B and 9S's separation before 2B wakes up infected. While it starts the same with 2B taking command of 9S's Flight Unit to help him escape, 9S hacks the Unit to return and save 2B, only for the two to get separated when one of the infected YoRHa androids detonate her Black Box, sending 2B crashing into the city and 9S into the desert where he fights a pair of Hegels.
- Episode 17 ends with A2 regaining consciousness in Pascal's village instead of the bridge, with Pascal having recovered her when he went to investigate the emergence of the Tower.
- In Episode 17, Rose manages to give the four YoRHa members names of their own, something that did not happen in the stage plays.
- The attack on the Machine Village is heavily altered. First is that rather than A2 running to see the village already destroyed by the Logic Virus infecting its residence, she's present in the village on a resource trade on Lily's behalf when Pod 042 detect an army of infected machine approaching the village. A2 manages to rally the peaceful machines to defend their home while she holds the line, with Pascal arriving in time with his old weapon arsenal to take down the entire army. This turns out to be a Hope Spot for our protagonists, as just as the machines are celebrating their victory, another wave of enemies air bombs the entire village and attack during the chaos leaving Pascal and a couple of children as the only survivors plus A2 and Pod 042. Additionally, A2 asks Pascal to take the children to the resistance camp rather than the survivors heading to the empty factory as in the game.
- Following from this, Episode 21 shows that it was All for Nothing, as the Logic Virus contained within the children begin infecting the resistance, destroying the camp in the process and leaving only Devola and Popola as the sole survivors after Pascal self destructs to stop the source of the infestation. Even Lily is Mercy Killed by A2 to stop the Logic Virus from corrupting her, in a mirror of 2B's own death in episode 16.
- Episode 22 shows that upon entering the three codes to enter the Tower, the hacking space has 9S encounter a previous version of himself and learn about 2B's true identity as 2E.
- Episode 24 shows more on what Pods 042 and 153 had to go through in order to defy Project YoRHa and save 2B, 9S, and A2, by fighting off the Pods still loyal to the project. The end of the anime goes a bit further than Ending E in the game, as it shows 2B and 9S wake up, followed by an original scene where Accord vanishes after having taken an unconscious A2 away from the ledge where she was last seen in the game.
- Adaptational Explanation: The Ver 1.1a anime adaptation adds a lot of details that fill in plot holes and/or unanswered questions from the game that hadn't been previously addressed:
- The game's first mission for 2B and 9S is to go down to the surface and find an informant for the Commander who has gone missing, but it completely forgets this plot point only minutes later as soon as they arrive at the Resistance Camp. They don't ignore their mission in the anime, and the third episode has them find the informant's dead body in the desert apartments.
- The Bunker uses very powerful weapons like a satellite laser and a ballistic missile against Grun late in Route A, and then never again, leading gamers to wonder where all this awesome firepower wasn't used more consistently against the machines. The anime shows the Council of Humanity consistently denies the Commander permission to use their most advanced weapons, which is just as frustrating to her as the audience. In Episode 14, they finally relent and YoRHa supplies the Resistance with much high-tech equipment like railguns, ballistic missiles, and energy shields.
- The question of what exactly differentiates a B-type and an E-type model besides tactical role was never really elaborated on in the game, leading some to wonder how well an E-type would actually fare in battle. The anime answers this question in its second half with the reveal of "NFC Mode 2": an E-type exclusive combat style specifically designed to kill other YoRHa androids.
- At the start of Route C, the machines hit all of YoRHa with a massive area-effect logic virus. More than one player has wondered exactly why 9S couldn't use his hacking abilities to counter all this, especially since he cures an infection of his own late in the game's ending, but Episode 15 explicitly states he can only counter-hack it if it's at an early stage. This is why he can't save the Commander once she reveals her infection, as it's already been a few minutes and the virus has irreparably contaminated her whole system.
- During Route C's intro when 2B and 9S are using Flight Units to escape from the destroyed Bunker, 2B overrides control of 9S's Flight Unit when they are attacked by infected YoRHa pilots and sends him away. In the game, the next time we see 9S after this, he is back on the ground with no sign of what happened to his Flight Unit, raising the question of why didn't he just use it upon landing to rush to 2B's side before she died. In the anime, he hacks her override and regains control and flies back to the dogfight to rescue her, but one of the enemy pilots detonates her own Black Box, which destroys his Flight Unit and separates the two of them.
- While extra materials outside the game told us that A2 knew 2B was an E-type due to her and 9S having fought A2 multiple times before the game began, it wasn't clear exactly when A2 found out 2B was also 9S's personal executioner with the game implying it took some time for A2 to piece this together throughout the course of Route C, particularly thanks to the corrupted memory file of 2B that she processes after defeating Hegel in the desert. The anime, however, explicitly confirms that A2 learned that 2B was 9S's killer the moment she touched her sword with her shocked reaction when the memories flood into her.
- The game was a bit vague in why exactly A2 and her whole squad was expected to die during the Pearl Harbor Descent Operation. While the obvious answer would be that the insanely high numbers of enemy forces would have killed them all if not for unexpected support from the Resistance, the manga adaptation of this story (and by extension the corresponding episode of Ver 1.1a, which could only be animated because the manga had finished one month prior to said episode's airing) showed that any squad members that made it to the end would have had to detonate their Black Boxes to destroy the Mount Ka'ala server, as they did not possess any other weapons powerful enough to finish the mission. The only reason A2 was able to escape and survive was because A4 removed the Black Boxes of the virus-infected G16 and S21, combined them with her own Black Box to create a much more powerful bomb than expected, and then threw herself down a shaft to target the server core directly.
- It had never been previously specified exactly when 9S figured out that 2B had been repeatedly executing him over the past 3 years, and that her real identity was 2E. The anime pins down this revelation as happening right before he enters the Tower.
- For the game's final battle, 9S becoming infected with a logic virus nonsensically comes out of nowhere because he had already deleted a viral infection after replacing his destroyed right arm with an arm from one of the 2B copies. In the anime, however, he refuses to listen to his Pod and does not do a self-hack to delete the virus from the arm replacement, which means Pod 153 can only eliminate 95% of the virus on her own, leading to his infection in the end.
- After the game's Ending E, it shows Pod 153 carrying a damaged Pod 042, who laments how he carried out a suicide attack but somehow survived it, with no further context being given. Ver 1.1a's ending expands on this by showing Pod 042 staging a Last Stand against the Pods still loyal to YoRHa and suffering heavy damage as a result. Similarly, the inconclusive fate of 9S in the game's Ending C where he is simply carried off somewhere by Pod 042 is resolved in the anime since it merges the major events of Endings C, D, & E together into a unified, coherent finale.
- Adaptational Jerkass: While 9S was always racist towards machines, the anime really takes it to frankly alarming levels. In the game, particularly Route B, he hacks into Simone the Opera Singer to try to weaken her so 2B could win. But as he sees her memories, he can't help but feel some degree of pity or sympathy for her, and 2B has to tell him to knock it off, with the suggestion that her No Sympathy was due to Simone's treatment of her fellow androids. This is quite different from the anime. In Episode 4, "a mountain too High," where we see two machines begging for their lives after Simone dies. 9S coldly kills them both, and he tells 2B not to feel anything for machines, which quite obviously alarms and mildly upsets her. It also doubles as Irony, as 2B - the one who tries not to show emotions to cope with her deeply conflicted Hidden Depths - is the one being lectured by 9S - the one who shows emotions - not to feel emotions for their enemies. This also serves as a clever bit of Foreshadowing - she's Not So Stoic despite almost desperately trying to be the opposite, and he has a deep-seated Mask of Sanity that only one person (2B) maintains for him.
- In Episode 19, the events of the Resource Recovery Unit known as the "Meat Locker" are changed so that the inside of the unit is populated by unarmed, helpless civilian machines (as opposed to the vengeful Forest Kingdom soldiers in the game). 9S has zero hesitation slaughtering them as they are panicking and trying to escape from him. In the game, it was A2 who did something like this.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Commander White comes off as a much more compassionate figure in the anime as opposed to how cold and uncaring she seemed in the game. While she remains a serious woman from beginning to end, the anime has many additional scenes of her in private meetings with the Council of Humanity, showing she is under intense pressure from them and that she has repeatedly requested permission to send additional support to her troops (such as making more liberal use of satellite lasers) but is constantly denied. Episode 13 showed that she was planning to cancel 2E's execution orders against 9S as soon as the war was over and in Episode 15, she never accuses 2B and 9S of being virus-infected nor tries to arrest them thanks to her being unconscious in the command center. Finally, she is the one who delivers a Mercy Kill to Operator 6O, and the context of the scene indicates there was probably more than a professional relationship between them.
- Adaptational Sympathy: A2's backstory receives much more attention and detail than anything the game provided the players, which was only three text logs written from Anemone's perspective. The anime adapts the Pearl Harbor Descent Record manga adaptation in Episodes 6 and 17, showing the complete story of the mission from the moment A2 and her squad launched out of the Bunker until the Mt. Ka'ala server was destroyed in nuclear fire. This also includes the first on-screen depiction of how A2's fellow squadmates died in graphic detail and what exactly the machine network told her in the server core that completely broke her loyalty to YoRHa.
- One of the most morally questionable acts A2 does in the game, which is to coldly murder all the bucket-wearing machines trying to revive their "Big Brother" as they are on their hands and knees begging for mercy from her, never happens in the anime because the other party involved was completely Adapted Out of Ver 1.1a.
- Adaptational Villainy: In the game's ending E, a few other Pods assist Pods 042 and 153 in restoring 2B, 9S and A2, thus showing that at least some of the Pods support the two rogue Pods. In the anime's final episode, all pods except 042 and 153 are fully on-board with the YoRHa deletion plan, and thus they all become the two's Final Boss.
- Adapted Out:
- While 2B and 9S find the Desert Rose during the first cour and even show it to Operator 6O over the commlink, she does not mention the rose at all during her death in Episode 16 even while she goes out of the way to say some last words for 2B which is in contrast to the game where she thanks 2B for the flowers if said sidequest was completed.
- The post-game intel file "Machine Research Report" is never written, meaning that the truth of YoRHa's expendability and the existence of the secret cabal of androids who have been manipulating the Machine Wars over the millennia never becomes public knowledge. This is because in Episode 21, the entire Resistance was killed off. This includes Jackass, who was the author of the report.
- Anyone Can Die: And a lot end up doing so. Even being spared in the game doesn't mean a character will survive in the anime. Anemone takes Lily's spot as one of the androids eliminated during the Pearl Harbor Descent mission, while Jackass blows herself up stopping the members of the Resistance infected with the Logic Virus. Only half of her upper torso remains when the results of the Resistance's last stand against the virus is shown. Additionally, Pascal self destructs himself to prevent the virus form speading further. While the Pods perish fighting off their own kind when rebuilding 9S and 2B
- Art Shift: Most episodes end with a small comedic skit featuring the characters done up with paper and wooden rod puppets.
- Big Badass Battle Sequence: Episodes 11 and 12 of the anime after the machine network goes berserk is depicted as this. Whereas the game made it seem like it was just 2B fighting against the rampaging machines while a handful of Resistance fighters run for their lives, the anime shows it as a global battle with 200,000 machines rampaging just in the City Ruins area alone. The entire Resistance across all of planet Earth is fighting desperately against them with multiple YorHa bases on the surface being overrun as the Council of Humanity orders all available YorHa forces in orbit to deploy immediately, with even Pascal joining to help out as well.
- Episode 14 shows a major battle in the desert between the Resistance and an army of Goliath-class Engels machines at the same time the game was focused on YoRHa forces battling in the City Ruins.
- Bittersweet Ending: Much like the game itself, which is simultaneously more bitter and more sweet. The entire Resistance is wiped out, including members who survived the game like Jackass and Anemone. Major supporting characters like Pascal, Popola, and Devola still die, even Lily ends up dying, and the Bunker still gets wiped out. Pascal's village also gets destroyed in an even more disturbing and horrifying way than in the game. Even the machine network's goal of starting anew in a different world may never come to fruition, as they admit to A2. On the other hand, much like Ending E, 2B, A2, and 9S are all rebuilt by Pod 042 and Pod 153, but this time it comes at the cost of the Pods, who give their lives to ensure the trio's survival. On the sweeter side, 2B and 9S both wake up and happily greet each other, finally able to live together in peace. However, A2 is not shown at the ledge she was last seen in the game, leaving her fate ambiguous... that is, until Accord finally steps in, saving and retrieving A2's unconscious body and placing her next to a Freesia flower, with her long hair fully restored. It actually ends on a much more hopeful note than the game, but with even more death and horror leading up to it.
- Boring, but Practical: The Resistance is stuck using 20th/early 21st century-era weapons against the machine lifeforms, with AK rifles and SMAW rocket launchers as their most common weapons. The most hi-tech equipment they seem to have are EMP grenades, all of which are a very far cry from the ultra-advanced teleporting swords and energy beams that YoRHa possesses. But it's still enough to let the Resistance serve as a major nuisance to the machines for centuries.
- Breather Episode: Episode 18 follows the Whole Episode Flashback regarding A2's past during the Pearl Harbor Descent Operation. The episode has A2 having to stay in the Machine Village and spending time with the children after Pascal and other Machines found her unconscious and brought her to the village to recover, along with A2 reuniting with Lily. However, the same-lighthearted tone is not with 9S, as we are shown the grief from 2B's death is pushing him towards vengeance towards all Machine Lifeforms and A2.
- Continuity Nod:
- When 9S hacks into Emil, he catches glimpses of his memories from over eight thousand years ago.
- The church in the copied city features full-body effigies on stone slabs of what appear to be Brother Nier, Yonah and the original Devola and Popola.
- Among the Pods seen in the second Opening Title Sequence are a Pod 006 and a special Pod with Mama's visage.
- Also from NieR Re[in]carnation and the short story A Much Too Silent Sea is a cameo of what might possibly be 10H on the moon base when 2B talks about how humanity went extinct in Episode 15.
- The hidden message in Episode 12 mentions that one of the units writing the messages (all but confirmed to be one of the Accords) went missing while the battle in the episode was taking place, and that caution must be taken when investigating, because she may have mutated into a "B Complex". This picks up an obscure but seemingly massive important lore thread previously only mentioned in SINoALICE's collab with Drakengard 3, where it's mentioned that the Accords observed a mysterious class of enemies called the B Cluster show up in undiscovered timelines as well as instances of the Great Disaster of 856note , which managed to fight off their "flying weapons" (dragons) and also "took over" and mutated one of the Accords, which may or may not have then further mutated into Parrah and Noya from SINoALICE.
- Death by Adaptation: Quite a few characters in the game don't make it in the anime.
- Anemone, who was the Resistance leader in the game, dies during the Hawaii mission in the anime and is replaced by Lily instead.
- 4S is active during the large-scale YoRHa attack and consequently gets infected by the wide-area Logic Virus attack and dies.
- The entire Resistance with the exception of Devola and Popola is killed off in Episode 21 due to being mass infected by the Logic Virus.
- Pascal self destructs out of a combination of grief at the death of the village children and to eliminate the source of the Logic Virus that infected the Resistance.
- Pod 042 and Pod 153 die in their efforts to bring 2B, 9S, and A2 back to life while fighting off the other Pods.
- Easter Egg: Every episode has blink-and-you'll-miss-it flashes of hexadecimal code that, when translated, reveal cryptic "reports" related to the background lore of the game and the franchise at large, seemingly written by the Accords, a class of androids from Drakengard 3.
- "Everybody Dies" Ending: Almost. By the end, between both the deaths carried over from the game and the above-mentioned characters who experience Death by Adaptation, the only ones who survive the series are A2, 9S and 2B who were all rebuilt thanks to the pods' efforts. We also see Accord, who takes A2 away from the ledge that we last see her in the game. The Machine Network's fates are left in the air, but they do leave Earth in hopes of starting anew on a different planet. 2B and 9S awaken, but A2 is still unconscious. Accord's wink at the camera indicates she expects A2 will awaken not too long after 2B and 9S, but we don't see it.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: In Episode 16, after 2B is infected with a logic virus, the "loading" screen for the commercial break shows a faint shot of N2's eyes in the center, indicating 2B's viral infection was no random accident but a very deliberate targeted attack by the Terminals to destroy 9S's psyche.
- Funny Background Event: After the defeat of the Goliath-class robots in Episode 14, Jackass gets harrassed by Pod 153 while fixing one of the railguns, with the latter zapping then chasing the former after a failed attempt to be shooed away, ending with Jackass lying in a heap. And then the robots reactivate.
- Hope Spot:
- The anime in Episode 16 teases viewers with the possibility that 9S just may save 2B from death, as in this version of the story, he overrides her control of his Flight Unit and goes back to save her from the infected YoRHa pilots, even succeeding in pulling her out of her Flight Unit and into his. Then all hopes come crashing down when one of the enemy pilots detonates her black box instead...
- Episode 20 has an army of enemy machines invading Pascal's village, but despite their numbers A2 and Pascal hold them off with very low casualties, making it seem like the massacre from the game has been averted. Then a fleet of machines airdrop suicide bombers onto the entire village from above, killing off many of the peaceful machines while another squad of enemies arrive to slaughter more. As in the game, the only survivors are Pascal and a small group of children, plus A2 and Pod 042.
- Then comes Episode 21. Just when it seems everything is okay, it comes out that one of the children is carrying the Logic Virus, which quickly spreads throughout the camp and infects nearly everyone. By the time A2 and Pascal show up to lend assistance, everyone, infected and uninfected alike, are dead, and Lily is forced to be put down by A2 when her infection proves to be too far along to be reversed.
- Merging the Branches: Ultimately the decision for adapting Endings C/D. Like in Ending C, A2 defeats 9S in their final duel, gets access to his core to purge the Logic Virus from his mind, and sends him away with the pods as she dies from the Tower collapsing in on her. However a few key moments are kept from Ending D, 9S almost kills her by hacking into her mind, and A2 gets the offer to go with the Machine Ark which successfully fires here.
- One-Man Army: YoRHa's forces are this compared to the Resistance when it comes to fighting against the machine lifeforms, as the game never showed the Resistance's combat capabilities. What takes dozens or hundreds of Resistance fighters to do, a single YoRHa android can accomplish by itself. A major case in point comes in Episode 11 where killing a single superpowered infected cannibal machine took half of Lily's camp to do, while 2B then kills three of the same machines by herself.
- In Episode 17, after A2 and her surviving squadmates land on the surface and encounter their first enemy force, they realize they are up against 128,000 machine lifeforms, which was 8 times more than what they expected (16,000). Considering that her squad originally consisted of 16 members, this implies that Command expects every YoRHa android to be the combat equivalent of 1,000 machines.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: The game's finale, where the player is asked to sacrifice their save file for the best possible ending, is obviously impossible to adapt in a non-interactive medium. Thus the ending of the series replaces the player's sacrifice with the sacrifice of Pods 042 and 153, who die while protecting the resurrected 2B and 9S from the other Pods, which is not what happens in the game.
- Rousing Speech: Lily delivers one to the Resistance in Episode 11 to rally all the troops against the machine army rampage.
- Shoo Out the Clowns: The final post-credits puppet show occurs in Episode 19. As of Episode 20, the puppet show segments get discontinued and the post-credits scenes turn into Pods 042 and 153 having serious conversations about 9S and A2.
- Vocal Evolution: During her time with YoRHa as No. 2, A2 had a fairly high-pitched voice to pair with her optimism, but by the time 2B and 9S encounter her, her voice has changed to reflect her bitterness. Not only that, a good 6 years had passed since Cherami Leigh originally recorded her lines for A2 for the game, so, like with Laura Bailey and Kaine in the remake of NieR Replicant, she sounds different in the anime than in the original game due to being older.
- We ARE Struggling Together: The episodes devoted to the Pearl Harbor Descent operation flashback show there was a lot of tension between the Resistance and YoRHa that nearly came to actual shots being fired at each other, with the former feeling abandoned by the latter and also resenting the sheer difference in power and technology levels between the two. A2 has to be the one to defuse the situation before the two sides come to blows by proposing that they all need to fight together to complete the operation or the machine armies will easily destroy them.
- Wham Line: In Episode 13, 2B addressing 9S as "Nines" at the start of the episode is a major indicator that this is in the past and this is an earlier incarnation of 9S we are seeing who is doomed to die at her hands.
- Whole Episode Flashback:
- Much of Episode 6 is devoted to covering the events of the Pearl Harbor Descent Operation, an incident that occurred 5 years before the story begins and provides the backstory for A2 and Lily.
- Episode 13 is mostly about selected snippets of missions that 2B went on at an unspecified time in the past with a previous version of 9S before she executed him for accessing classified data.
- Episode 17 returns to the events of the Pearl Harbor Descent, this time covering it from A2's point of view from the initial descent all the way to the finale of the mission, ending with A4 nuking the Hawaii server and A2 escaping the destruction. The events are framed as Pod 042 repairing A2's memories after she Mercy Killed an infected 2B.
- Zombie Apocalypse: In Episode 21, a logic virus outbreak caused by one of the village children hits the Resistance Camp, resulting in a horde of androids acting like classic shambling zombies.
"Everything that lives is designed to end.
They are perpetually trapped... in a never-ending spiral of life and death.
However... life is all about the struggle within this cycle.
That is what "we" believe."
They are perpetually trapped... in a never-ending spiral of life and death.
However... life is all about the struggle within this cycle.
That is what "we" believe."