Once just a modest cult following, Drakengard and Nier devotees coalesced into a mainstream fandom following the success of Nier Automata. This prompted Square Enix to revisit Automata’s predecessor Nier Replicant for a partial remake and expansion on the original story. Nier isn’t the most popular JRPG around, but continued investment in the series indicates an interest in innovation and unconventional storytelling in the genre.
Given director Yoko Taro’s penchant for supplementing games with plays and books, he’s likely dreamt up new content to elevate Replicant’s re-release beyond a simple refurbish. Even the wacky full title of the game “Nier Replicant ver. 1.22474487139” includes the square root of 1.5, hinting that the new game is both a remake with a little bit of sequel included. Here are a few ways Replicant’s remake could tie together threads leading to Automata — spoilers ahead.
Updated May 31, 2021, by Joseph Burrell: It seems strange to expect questions raised by a sequel to be answered in a remake of a first installment. Final Fantasy 7 Remake shows, however, that Square Enix has no problem turning re-releases into entirely new adventures.
Changes to Nier Replicant ver. 1.22 aren’t as drastic as FF7R, but there’s enough new material to make the game something of an epilogue to itself, as well as a prologue to Automata. Many of the questions first posed here remain unanswered, destined for exploration in a future title. Other quandaries have been somewhat resolved, if only in ways that lead to more questions.
11 Where Is Accord? WHO Is Accord?
Where is Accord? When is Accord? Who is Accord? Why do these questions even matter? While Accord didn’t feature prominently in the original Replicant nor in Automata, she is confirmed to exist in those stories, and her existence carries great significance.
Accord appears in Drakengard 3, observing and occasionally intervening in the plot using her time control powers. Accord isn’t seen in the original Nier Replicant or in Automata, but in the latter, your weapons dealer says that his stock is retrieved by an android named Accord. The simplest explanation for her absence in the original Replicant was that she hadn’t been introduced until Drakengard 3 (canonically the earliest game in the series), which was released afterward. This would mean that she wasn’t invented in-canon until just before Automata.
Fans initially suspected that Accord had traveled backward from the time of her creation, skipped over Replicant, and went all the way back to Drakengard 3. A vague new loading screen message in Replicant ver. 1.22 confirms that Accord is known to Yonah, though her influence over the game’s plot remains unknown.
10 Is Drakengard 3 An Automata Sequel?
Another fan theory assumes that the Taro-verse timeline is circular, making Drakengard 3 both a prequel to everything, as well as a distant sequel to Automata. This would explain some of the out-of-place, non-fantasy, contemporary architecture in Drakengard 3.
Taro confirmed that even when she was unseen in the original Replicant, Accord “was always there, watching.” Will she straighten out this tangled timeline? Perhaps that’ll be the subject of another sequel.
9 Future of Emil(s)
No one knows what goes on in Taro’s giant, moon-shaped head. If anyone were to guess Taro’s favourite character though, Emil would be a logical pick since Taro’s mask is copied directly from Emil’s design at the end of Replicant. The character in Automata by the same name is not the sidekick featured in the original Replicant; he’s simply a clone. Original Emil cloned himself, creating an army to help fend off the alien invasion prior to Automata.
Though Emil’s strength was copied fully into each clone, his memories were scattered across them. Emil in Automata vaguely remembers his friends from Replicant. This suggests that the original Emil could also retain faint memories or none at all.
8 Successful Devolas And Popolas
In the original Nier, twin androids Devola and Popola are your caretakers and quest-givers. Their mission is to protect the “replicant” humans designed to host the disembodied spirits you’ve been fighting the whole time. They must balance protecting your safety while also preventing you from defeating the main antagonist, whose soul you were meant to host.
You complete the game and Devola and Popola fail their mission. Because every replicant settlement has their own Devola and Popola caretakers, the remaining units are reprogrammed to feel perpetual guilt for the failure of your units. Like Emil, the Devola and Popola in Automata are not those from Replicant, but they carry the guilt from their failure. Automata revealed that some settlements succeeded in unifying the replicants, but what happened to the Devolas and Popolas that didn’t fail?
7 Which Timeline Is It?
Taro loves timeline splits and alternate dimensions. Though the main plot of each Nier game is confined to one dimension (as far as anyone can tell), the Drakengard games aren’t shy about the existence of parallel worlds. The original Nier featured drastic localization changes which altered the appearance of the main character and his relationships with the cast.
This time Taro has featured both main characters in the remake. In Nier Gestalt (which starred Dad-Nier), a later DLC introduced players to Replicant’s Brother-Nier. Because the re-released Replicant makes Brother-Nier the canon main character in all localizations, this time Dad-Nier is the subject of a bonus chapter at the end of the game.
6 *Dawn Of The Night Kingdom
If Accord is the most mysterious character in Taro’s universe then The Night Kingdom is the most mysterious setting — fitting then that the latter is the birthplace of the former. Drakengard 3 begins around the year 900, Drakengard 1 continues thereafter and ends in 2003, Replicant’s prologue is in 2049 and game-play begins around 3360. Finally, Automata takes place during 11945 — 10,000 years after the end of World War II.
After the Replicant prologue, but before the real plot begins, a planet-shaking disaster knocks the world into a tidal lock, meaning one side of the Earth always faces the sun. The geographical setting is unclear, but it’s known that the game doesn’t take place in the Americas, which now permanently face away from the sun, in the hemisphere called The Kingdom of Night. Taro occasionally teases details about The Kingdom, revealing it to be where Accord, and other mechanized weapons, were invented. The Replicant remake didn’t reveal much about The Kingdom, but since it added new references to Accord it’s likely the next Nier will explore her origin story more.
5 *Tie-In To Reincarnation
Not one to miss out on the recent gachapon craze, Yoko Taro also launched mobile RPG Nier Reincarnation in Japan earlier this year. Precious little is known about this game’s plot, even to those that have played the story so far. For now, what’s known is that you control the “Girl of Light” – who explicitly isn’t Kaine – as you wander through a colossal stone temple called The Cage. Jump you into memories belonging to other characters, where combat takes place, to progress the story and unlock your own memories. The characters played during combat stages are The Wanderer, The Clockwork Soldier, The Assassin, and The Prosthetic Hunter – who looks like the missing link between Kaine and the YoRHa bots.
Taro has stated that the plot isn’t dependent on understanding Replicant nor Automata, but that connections to each will become clear to long-time fans. Reincarnation is expected to release worldwide in November.
4 *Eve’s Watchers Tattoo
Those who played Automata on its own probably interpreted Eve’s tattoos as nothing more than iconography co-opted from a nameless, ancient civilization, by a robot trying to relate to extinct humans. What this tattoo actually signifies is belonging to a faction known as The Cult of The Watchers. The Watchers (and their cult) play a major role in Drakengard 3 and its spin-off comics. Their involvement in Replicant still isn’t fully understood, so this appearance in Automata is even more perplexing.
Hopefully another sequel will answer this question. Perhaps The Watchers’ presence in the earliest and latest points on the timeline so far further support the circular narrative theory. Did The Watchers appear in Drakengard 3 and reappear in Automata? Or did they first appear around Automata and travel back in time like Accord?
3 *The Red Eye
Red eyes are a recurring and loosely defined motif in the Taro universe. Drakengard 3’s main protagonist Zero has red eyes, as do the strongest of her clones, the main antagonists.
The monster that brings about the apocalypse during Replicant’s prologue is named The Red Eye and may be the brainwashed protagonist of Drakengard 1. But androids infected with a virus also have red eyes in Automata. Themes that seem connected in the Taro universe usually are… so expect this to come up in future titles.
2 Birth of Unit 2
Unfortunately, Automata’s exhilarating third act leaves little time for characterizing the game’s third main character, A2. Fortunately, her origin story is detailed in a stage play, but it would have been nice to see it in a game. While 2B was based on A2’s design, it’s hinted that A2 was designed to mimic Kaine who lived thousands of years earlier in Nier Replicant.
A2 doesn’t appear in the new Replicant, but the addition of yet another secret ending (Route E) further contextualizes the relationships between the androids in Automata and their predecessors in Replicant. This new ending even features the vocal talents of Kira Buckland and Kyle McCarley. The actors aren’t reprising their Automata roles here… but they aren’t entirely different characters either.
1 *What Does It All Mean?
Indeed most of the fun in the Nier series comes from reflecting on the themes of artifice, imposter syndrome, religious fanaticism, etc., and not having one definitive interpretation. No one wants a singular, “definitive” interpretation from Taro to be added to the games.
The remake did improve, however, by getting out of the way of itself. The original Replicant’s extremely buggy game-play acted as another barrier to players already trying to grapple with Taro’s abstract storytelling. By being more playable than its predecessor the Replicant remake offers a wider audience the chance to actually engage with one of the most remarkable narratives in the medium.
