Wait, what am I doing here again?
This piece contains spoilers for Nier Automata and Beautiful World, Where Are You.
How do we find meaning in the modern world?
But it seems like a more pertinent, gripping question now than it ever has been.
I looked at the internet for too long today and started feeling depressed.
Scrolling through words that are at once world-ending, then hilarious renders all of it a little null.
So, what could that possibly have to do with Nier Automata,Square Enixs fan-favourite action-RPG?
Everything, is the answer.
It always ends like this.
Its a crushing revelation in the context of the game.
The high-octane melodrama of the JRPG dissipates.
All thats left is a kind of emptiness.
One baffling sequence has the barrel shaped machines awkwardly emulating sex.
Awkward might be an understatement.
Once its head falls off they become unhinged, chanting Become as Gods.
kindly God show me what you want.
Rooney similarly depicts a feeling of meaninglessness.
The usually omniscient narrator doesnt even have answers, itself constantly interpreting facial expressions or gestures.
Modern structures of economics and digitisation make Alice and Eileen dissociate themselves from their own sensory experiences.
What theyre living through isnt unique.
If the androids and machines are repeating the cycles of humanity, what are we doing?
Do you think games are silly little things?
Except, right at the end of both, Taro and Rooney seem to shift their stance.
The only beauty they can find in the world is in the people they love.
Nier Automata pulls off an ending that only a video game as boisterous and confident as this could.
Our central characters kill each other fighting for ideas that the game has long-established as pointless.
This is a near impossible feat as the credits fire relentlessly.
After dying, repeatedly, something magical happens.
I never quite realised… how beautiful this world is.
Again, reminding readers that there is no long-term comfort to be found with or without structure.
But maybe video games are.
Automatas ending is universally adored, partly because it does what no other medium can do.
It doesnt just call for people to support and hold and love one another, it makes us.
Theres at least some beauty in that.
As long as you both live the world will be beautiful to me.
