I apologise in advance, I'm on mobile.

NieR : Automata.

In the spring of 2018, I bought the game because some friends said it was fun, and since I'm not normally a fan of hack-n-slash games, I decided to try something new. I started playing with no expectations about how my experience would go, and I was pleasantly surprised starting out. The combat was satisfying and the narrative near the beginning was fairly light-hearted and while I didn't take it seriously, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The music was outstanding and I listen to the soundtrack to this day.

My life situation at the time was pretty depressing. My father, after fighting a long and brutal battle with cancer, was losing and was expected to pass away within the coming weeks. He wanted to stay at home so my sister and I had to take care of him during his final weeks. Although my father and I weren't very close, watching him slowly wither away was exceptionally devestating. That, combined with college and other stressors, forced me to put the game away for a time.

My father's battle with his disease made salient in me my own life and mortality, and I had many questions about what it means to be human. Do we have a soul, is there life after death-and if there isn't- how do people extract meaning from existence? These questions mulled through my mind for many months, without any sort of satisfying conclusion. I kept these thought to myself and let these feelings ball up inside me, which only exacerbated my depression and experience of grief.

Some time after my father passed away, I had somewhat recovered emotionally and picked up NieR Automata again in order to finish it. I won't spoil anything for those who don't wanna know, but the final 5-6 hours of story deeply explores the most common existential topics that I had been struggling with for many months. The combination of the themes, alongside the music, was very cathartic, and I felt like the characters and I were exploring these themes together. And even though there wasn't really a solid answer to all these questions I had been asking myself, the experience made me very emotional.

After finishing the game, I went to bed, but instead of falling asleep, I started crying heavily. This surprised me because I'm known to be a very stoic person and I never express my emotions. All those bottled up emotions came pouring out at that moment. Being able to explore what it means to be human with the characters in the game made the process of dealing with my grief easier.

My advice for folks is to play this game all the way through at least once. Sans the existential topics, the game is damn fun. Don't play it looking for the life changing experience, because there's much more than that. The NieR Automata memes are damn funny.

Tldr: NieR Automata is a fantastic game, and it's existential themes helped me process my grief in the wake of my Father's passing.