*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 get the chance to kill him.*

NieR: Automata starts with the protagonist 2B uttering these ominous and fairly existential lines, that the player has to listen to every time they die which is unavoidable in long and difficult opening sequence, which in itself is a brilliant display of synchronising the meaning, gameplay and story in games.

Like most things in NieR: Automata, these words have a multitude of meanings, which slowly unravel as you complete the game. But I'd like to focus on one particular idea that the game subtly suggests to the player (amongst many brilliant suggestions): Kill your Gods

Now, apart from the obvious nod to Nietzsche and existentialism, killing Gods has a deeper meaning, to understand that we need to first understand what is meant by ‘Gods’ in this context.

What’s a God?

Neither I, nor the game cares about the traditional notions of God, so I'd like to propose a new definition for the purposes of this piece:

A God is anyone or anything or any idea who has a significant cultural influence on the zeitgeist of any given time.

What does that even mean?

Let's talk about what would constitute as a 'God' in the current times.

We live in a largely Neo-liberal, capitalist world whose seeds were sown by a plethora of individuals over the years, from the Crusader knights charging pilgrims a commission for the safe keeping of wealth to Adam Smith and Karl Marx. In this sense, the idea of capitalism becomes a 'God' (having no particular individual it originated from.

Similarly, communism and similar systems practiced by some countries has a 'God' it originated from, Marx. In fact, almost all the derivative systems has a 'God' it originated from.

Another example would be the multiple generations whose existential angst is more often than not solved by the works of philosophers like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Camus and Sarte, whose work permeates every single media dealing with existence. Including, you guessed it, NieR: Automata.

In fact, the game routinely touches upon numerous political and philosophical ideas, and deals with all of them with the same 'Kill your Gods' or less in-your-face 'even Gods are mortals' core theme. I am being vague because I don't want to spoil anything major from this beautiful piece of art, but to give an example of how the games does this (once again synchronising story, themes and gameplay), here are some of the bosses your have to kill:

  • Marx
  • Simone (as in Beauvoir)
  • Grün
  • Hegel
  • Auguste

You also see the fate of some interesting side characters such as Pascal & Jean-Paul.

What's the point of it all?

The game is trying to tell us that maybe, just maybe we give too much reverence to certain ideas, as a society and individuals. So much reverence, in fact that these ideas become akin to universal truths.

We start feeling that these ideas or the individuals who came up with them, are infallible. On a societal level, this creates a fanatical, dogmatic following of these ideas and any criticism or alternatives are violently rejected (very akin to traditional Gods, don’t you think?).

On an individual level, this can lead to an inability to change, to view things from different perspectives or to try out new things. Maybe the Gods you've followed so far have failed you, but you've been following them for so long that existing without them feels impossible. Maybe you fell you'll be incomplete without them, that something will not be right without these Gods guiding you through life. But I still urge you to kill your Gods, for all the avenues they hid from you, for every time they misguided you, for every time they underestimated your capabilities and for making you think their moralities apply to you.

The day you realise that you're capable of killing Gods, is the day you have the potential to become one.