• Pros

  Solid action gameplay, with fun customization, engaging enemies and open world exploration. Excellent soundtrack. Great longevity thanks to multiple playable characters and alternate stories.

• Cons

  Buggy, and prone to crashes. No official improvement patch in sight.

• Bottom Line

  Nier: Automata is a match made in heaven, blending the zany tragedy of Yoko Taro's storytelling with Platinum Games' high-energy gameplay. Unfortunately, the PC port suffers from performance problems.

This mod will only fix Nier: Automata’s PC port if you didn’t pirate it Nier: Automata is rather good if more than a little sexy. The PC port, not so much. Nier: Automata is a fine video game, but it also has some technical problems on PC which are a bit of a bummer.Where Platinum and Square have come up short, though, a fan-made mod is making things.

Nier: Automata is an action-RPG developed by Platinum Games, the studio behind the Bayonetta games, and directed by Yoko Taro, the creator of the Drakengard series and the original Nier. Platinum Games' previous works excel on the gameplay front, but their stories are generally campy schlock. Taro's games, on the other hand, are brilliantly depressing stories tied together with weak gameplay. Nier: Automata is a marriage of Platinum Games' intense action combat and Taro's wacky, yet somber storytelling, and is easily one of the better games released in 2017. Unfortunately, Nier: Automata is a PC game that suffers from technical issues. The lack of developer support only compounds this, so you need to rely on fan-made patches to get the best performance out of the game.

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A Series of Unfortunate Events

The first Nier game developed a niche following, thanks to its tragic storytelling, interesting cast of characters, outstanding soundtrack, and unique gameplay quirks. Nier, the titular protagonist, was a grizzled old man out to save his daughter from monstrous manlike creatures called Shades. Despite his noble pursuit, the heart of Nier's story was misunderstanding, and how the breakdown of communication leads to tragedy and loss. The game utilized fairly generic action combat in most scenarios, but also spiced things up with bullet-hell styled projectiles, perspective puzzles, and even the odd text adventure section. Nier's soundtrack, which featured a haunting blend of surreal vocals, mellow tunes, and catchy hooks, also caught players by surprise. The combination of these elements resulted in a game that felt distinct from other Japanese RPGs at the time.

Nier: Automata shares many themes with its predecessor, including the music, storytelling, and gameplay. You play as 2B, an android tasked with defeating the robot threat, and assisting other androids living in Earth's wastelands. The Androids, 2B included, are biased against the robotic denizens that have taken over the world, and fight them indiscriminately. You learn very quickly, however, that robots are much more humane than their goofy cylindrical appearances would have you believe, and the androids aren't quite the heroes you are told they are. Much like the original game, misunderstanding and misinformation play key roles in Automata's story. This only becomes more poignant on subsequent replays, which have you play as alternate characters with unique perspectives and scenarios.

Hard Android Action

Automata shares core gameplay elements with Bayonetta and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, though it takes plenty of inspiration from the original Nier and injects unique gameplay mechanics, too. In Automata, movement is fast, satisfying, and fluid: You have a dash button similar to Raiden's Ninja Run in Revengeance. By holding this button down you can blaze through areas or around enemies at high speed. If you tap the button instead of holding it, you perform a dodge. If you time your dodge to avoid an attack just before it hits, you trigger a rewarding and useful perfect evade, which gives you extra invincibility frames and lets you perform a counterattack. This works similarly to Bayonetta's Witch Time mechanic, though in Automata's case, time does not slow down.

You have light and heavy attacks that chain together to slap around your robotic adversaries. All of your melee skills are available from the start, so you don't unlock new skills to expand your arsenal as you do in Bayonetta or Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Combos are also fairly simplistic, so you can chain light attacks into heavy attacks seamlessly, but predictably. Like Bayonetta, Nier: Automata lets you switch between alternate weapon sets, giving you more freedom to form combos on the fly.

While this may sound simplistic compared with other Platinum games, Automata has a few interesting wrinkles that make combat highly enjoyable. You have a robotic pod companion that serves as your long-range attack. Pod shooting also lets you cut through the storm of bullets fired your way by enemies. Like the original game, enemies fill the area with slow moving red orbs that chew through your health if you're careless. Your pod's fire can cut through these orbs to create openings, making it a defensive and offensive tool.

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Your pod can be equipped with ranged skills that mirror the magic spells in the original Nier. One skill, for example, surrounds you with whirling blades, complementing your melee assault. Another summons spears around you, temporarily impaling anything that gets hit. There are quite a few of these pod skills to purchase, and you can also find a second and third pod to alternate between during combat. Each one can be equipped with a unique skill, giving you three powerful attacks to cycle between, in addition to your melee combos.

Like the original Nier, Automata also has top-down shooting sections that are in the same vein as Ikaruga or Mars Matrix. During these sections, shooting is your primary source of damage output, though your melee skills can clear away bullets if you need some defensive options. These sections pop up from time to time throughout the story and are just challenging enough to keep you engaged, without being overly frustrating or tedious. I loved these sections, and appreciated the homage to the original Nier's quirky gameplay switches.

I thoroughly enjoyed Automata's combat. It feels simplified and streamlined, but not to the point where it is dumbed down. Automata is accessible enough that you can jump in and play without feeling harrowed or overwhelmed. The lack of a ranking system also helps, since you don't need to worry about the game hanging your poor performance over your head after every fight: In Automata, you fight and improve because you want to.

My Android, My Way

As an RPG, Automata has a leveling system and customization options, giving you a chance to improve and expand your abilities. You earn experience from combat, which levels up your health and strength. If you play through the game with some light side questing, you should be adequately leveled for most story scenarios. You can also improve the strength of weapons you find by upgrading them at shops with items you scavenge in the world, which gives you a noticeable attack boon.

Automata lets you upgrade 2B via a unique chip system. You earn chips by completing quests, defeating enemies, or simply buying them from shops. Most chip abilities are passive, with effects ranging from basic attack boosts to improving your movement speed. Some of the later chip abilities are highly powerful, and can noticeably alter how you play the game. One such ability, for example, slows down time whenever an errant bullet gets close to you, giving you ample time to avoid the attack. In order to install a chip, you need enough storage space to accommodate it. Advanced chips have higher capacity cost, so you need to be choosy about which ones you want to install on the character. You can expand your capacity by purchasing storage upgrades, but even at max, you need to be selective about what you equip.

A good set of chips can give you a massive advantage in a fight. However, it is easy to get in over your head and fight a powerful enemy much too early, and die. Automata uses a corpse-run mechanic similar to the Souls games and older MMOs: if you die in Automata, you drop all the chips you had equipped at your grave. If you fail to retrieve your chips, or die trying to get them, those chips will be forfeit. Most chips, even the rare ones, can be replaced late in the game, but doing so is costly and tedious, so losing them is very frustrating. Fortunately, the game gives you a plethora of auto-healing chips and healing items to use, so if you do happen to get in over your head, the chances are it was entirely your fault for jumping the gun in the first place. Death in Automata is the only real gauge of your performance, so the risk attached to dying is the game's one incentive to get better at playing. This ties back to the streamlined, laid-back style of play that the game utilizes, which I very much enjoy.

A Ruined World

Nier: Automata is set within an open environment, but it isn't expansive enough, or content-rich enough to be considered a proper open-world game. Automata takes place within a branching ruined cityscape, which serves as the main hub. You can undertake quests at several outposts, which usher you towards various areas in the city to complete them. The world is small enough that it makes good use of the space that it has, so you'll have seen all of what the city has to offer if you undertake most quests. At the same time, traveling from one point to another takes plenty of legwork, so the environments all feel sizeable and rewarding to explore. As the story progresses, the city changes and opens up, giving you more areas to explore and quests to take.

Automata's quests are particularly interesting, largely because of how rich yet utterly mundane they are. The game's quests, at their most basic, are simple fetch jobs or escort missions. The context for quests is what makes them memorable. One of my favorite quests involves two android lovers who have lost the will to fight and have deserted the resistance. They are hounded by a hunter for deserting, and you are tasked with finding parts for them to repair themselves at multiple points in the game.

At the end of their quest line, the female android has tired of running, and asks that you wipe both their memories so that they may go back to the resistance and be reinstated. The male android volunteers to go first, but after having his memory wiped, the female android backs down. You learn that the female android has no intention of having her memory wiped, and only suggested it to better mold her male partner in the future, since his personality didn't suit her. It's a revolting revelation, and one that made this storyline stand out in my mind, but functionally it is a simple fetch quest. Many of Automata's quests undergo tragic twists upon their conclusion, or flesh out the world and characters of the game, making them well worth undertaking despite how bland they seem on the surface.

Once you finish Automata, you restart the game from the beginning, as an alternate character. Your second replay of Automata focuses on 9S, 2B's male android partner. 9S is a good fighter, but lacks 2B's beefier melee prowess. To make up for this, 9S's heavy attack is a unique projectile that hacks the target's memory. Upon successfully connecting with the attack, you are immediately transported to a top-down shooting mini-game arena, where you must shoot gray obstacles to reveal the machine's memory orb. Destroying this orb lets you destroy the machine outright or commandeer it if you hack it unawares. 9S's combat demands good use of both melee and hacking damage, making your replay noticeably different, even though you are exploring many of the same areas.

You also unlock a third playthrough, which puts you in command of A2, an android antagonist that is at odds with both 2B's commander and the machines. A2 fights similarly to 2B, however her light attacks are weaker, her heavy attacks are stronger, and she can taunt enemies to boost her damage. She also gets unique story scenarios, much as 9S does. These scenarios greatly enhance Automata's story and longevity. Platinum Games' titles are generally designed around replays, and the unique experience these alternate playthroughs offer work perfectly with that design philosophy.

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Performance Issues and Minimum Specs

Nier: Automata has tremendous strengths, so the current PC issues that plague the game are a great disappointment. At the time of this writing, there have been no major updates or patches to address the performance and resolution problems that Automata suffers from.

Automata has very noticeable texture pop-in issues, which no graphical setting can change. Adjusting the resolution beyond 1080p often forces the game into windowed mode. Bumping the anti-ailiasing settings results in major performance drops with barely noticeable visual improvements. I suffered from extensive crashing during my first few hours of the game, particularly within the desert area. The game is locked at 60 frames per second, which is perfectly acceptable, but I do get stuttering regularly. To make matters worse, Square Enix recently released DLC for the game, but did nothing to address the performance bugs.

There is a solution to this poor port matter, though it comes from the community rather than Square Enix or Platinum Games. A fan-made patch rectifies quite a few of the issues that Automata has on PC, and can be found at the top of the game's Steam forums. Installing this is highly recommended if you wish to get the game in the meantime.

The game's Steam page recommends that your PC have at least an Intel Core i3 2100 CPU, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 GPU, 4GB of RAM, 50GB of available storage, and the Windows 7 operating system. As a Steam game, Nier: Automata supports Steam Achievements, Steam Cloud Saves, and Steam Trading Cards.

A Sullied Gem

It is a shame that Nier: Automata has been so thoroughly snubbed on PC by the developer and publisher. It is a truly excellent game on all fronts: it has a great visual style, fantastic music, great gameplay, and a deeply touching story. By all accounts Automata should be an Editors' Choice title, but the negligence the game has suffered makes it hard to recommend and rate highly. If you want to bite the bullet and grab Automata and install the community patch, you'll be treated to a powerful and satisfying action game. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I sincerely hope that Square Enix and Platinum Games releases an official patch.

Nier: Automata (for PC)

Bottom Line: Nier: Automata is a match made in heaven, blending the zany tragedy of Yoko Taro's storytelling with Platinum Games' high-energy gameplay. Unfortunately, the PC port suffers from performance problems.

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After being a relatively unknown face in the video game world, Yoko Taro's popularity has suddenly hit famous highs across the industry. Now known as that guy who wears a giant moon-face mask to avoid revealing his true identity, to hide an embarrassing blemish or just being born with it, Taro's popularity has surged thanks to NieR: Automata - his latest video game that verges on the side of gaming perfection for some.

That being said, Taro has repeatedly gone on record to say that, despite the game's surprise success, Square Enix and PlatinumGames didn't lay out a budget to handle any serious post-game DLC. While smaller chunks of content will be dished out through an otherwise undisclosed period of time, we're setting up a patch page incase any updates trickle out longer than we anticipated.

Being a PlayStation-based game for the most part - and one by Square Enix at that - these patch notes will likely feel different to our other patch note pages. This is because Square Enix usually forget to share the details of a given update; leaving fans to deduce what's changed between them. For now, this is all we know;

Changelog:

• General
• Fixes various issues with the 2B playthrough
• Fixes various issues with in-game cutscenes
• Various bug fixes across the board
• Reported Problems
• Players may be unable to 'hack' the Amusement Park bunny typically used for EXP farms. It can still be activated by dishing out enough damage, however.
• The message and button prompts displayed after a successful hack may appear jumbled making a decision difficult to navigate toward