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Our main "heroes." From left to right 

I hear a sound.

Drakengard, known as Drag-On Dragoon (Japanese: ドラッグ オン ドラグーン commonly abbreviated as DOD) in Japan, is a series of action role playing video games published by Square Enix. The eponymous first game in the series was released in 2003 on the PlayStation 2, and has since been followed by a sequel and a prequel. It was conceived by Takamasa Shiba and Takuya Iwasaki as a gameplay hybrid between Ace Combat and Dynasty Warriors 2, with the ability to switch between on-foot hack-and-slash gameplay and riding a dragon for flight-sim fighting action. The story was created by Shiba, Iwasaki, Yoko Taro, and Sawako Natori, who were influenced by European folklore and popular anime series and movies of the day. Shiba, Yoko, and Sawako have had involvement in an entry of the series since its debut.

A Spin-Off series was created in 2010 named NieR, set in an alternative reality and followed by a sequel called NieR: Automata developed by PlatinumGames with Yoko Taro as director, same as the original series (not counting Drakengard 2).

Installments include:

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    Drakengard 
  • Drakengard (2003, PS2). A young man named Caim sets out to destroy The Empire and protect his sister, who acts as a Barrier Maiden to a horrific threat. Caim isn't a great guy.
  • Drakengard 2 (2005, PS2). note  A conventionally heroic young man named Nowe fights to save the world from both his own corrupt knightly order and Caim himself.
  • Drakengard 3 (2013, PS3). A prequel. Zero, a bloodthirsty young woman, sets out to kill her sisters, the godlike Intoners, so that she will be the only Intoner left.

    NieR 
  • NieR note  (2010, PS3/Xbox 360). Nier, a somewhat downtrodden older brother (or father, depending on the version) looks for a cure to save his sister (or daughter) from a mysterious disease.
    • NieR: Replicant (2010, PS3) note 
      • NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139... (2021, PS4, Xbox One and PC) note 
    • NieR: Gestalt (2010, Xbox 360) note 
  • NieR: Automata (2017, PS4/PC) note . A race of androids fight a civilization of invading extraterrestrial machines After the End.
  • NieR Re[in]carnation (2021, Android and iOS). A mobile spin-off set in a world known as “The Cage”. How exactly the game connects to the rest of the franchise was unknown until the Third Arc, but it contains references to several games in the series.
    • “The Story of the Girl and the Monster”: The First Arc (total of twelve main story chapters) features a Girl of Light awakening in "The Cage”, accompanied by a ghost-like figure called “Mama”, to regain her lost memories and recount her “past sins” while encountering a Dark Monster roaming around the higher levels of "The Cage”.
    • “The Story of the Sun and the Moon”: The Second Arc (total of six main story chapters in each route, along with Three Multiple Endings) involves two high school students of modern-era Japan being transported to “The Cage”, both determined to return home to one of their parents (the father for the girl and the mother for the boy). Unlike the previous arc, players can choose either the Sun route (the female student) or the Moon route (the male student).
    • “The Story of the People and the World”: The Third Arc (total of six main story chapters), in which Mama brings back the characters from the previous two arcs for their assistance protecting The Cage from an external threat, eventually uncovering hidden truths along the way.

    Other 
  • Drakengard Judgement, a canceled prequel manga that only made it to two installments. Contradicted by later canon.
  • Grimoire Nier, a Universe Compendium to NieR as well as containing several short novellas.
  • NieR Replicant Drama CD: The Sealed Verses and the Red Sky, a collection of Drama CDs that mostly focus on characters and events surrounding Project Gestalt. It also contains the story The Space War, which delves into what happened when the aliens arrived after the end of NieR.
  • Drag-On Dragoon Shi ni Itaru Aka (Drakengard Fatal Crimson), a manga following Ending A of Drakengard 3 that leads to Drag-On Dragoon 1.3 below; it could be considered canon to the first Drakengard as well in Broad Strokes.
  • Drag-On Dragoon Utahime Five, a Lighter and Softer (Well sort of at first...) prequel manga to Drakengard 3 focusing on the Intoners and how they overthrew the evil lords who ruled Midgard before them.
  • Drag-On Dragoon 3 Story Side, a novel that acts as a sort of Ending E for Drakengard 3, the events of which are canon to the first game.
  • Drag-On Dragoon 1.3, a series of novels showing the alternative version of the events of the first game that follows from Ending A of Drakengard 3.
  • World Inside, a guidebook with 3 novellas inside as well.
    • The Garden of Light, a novella set after Ending A of Drakengard 2.
    • The Song of Fourteen Years, a novella set before the first Drakengard but separate from Drakengard 3.
    • The Fire of Prometheus, a novella set roughly two thousand years after the end of NieR.
  • YoRHa, a stage play series set thousands of years after NieR, setting up the premise of NieR:Automata.
  • SINoALICE, a free-to-play fairytale-based mobile game also created by Yoko Taro whose collaborations with the NieR series and Drakengard 3 imply a connection.
  • Final Fantasy XIV, an Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, features an Alliance Raid based around NieR: Automata. Written by Yoko Taro, it follows the Player Character dealing with Androids, Machine Lifeforms, and other threats from NieR: Automata. Its unclear if it is canonical to the series, but the story is set after the events of said game, and contains references to the past games.

The setting of the main series is a North European-style dark fantasy world where humans and creatures from myth and legends live side by side, while the spin-off game is set in an alternate reality leading from one of the first game's possible endings. The stories generally focus on the fortunes and personalities of a small group of protagonists either directly or indirectly connected to and affected by the events of the story. Dark or mature plot and character themes and multiple endings have become a staple of the series. Their popularity in Japan has resulted in multiple adaptions and additional media in the form of novelizations and mangas.

The series is considered highly popular in Japan, having sold well and gaining a cult following, though it appears to be a niche series in western countries. The main games have become noted for their dark storylines and mixture of ground-based and aerial combat, while NieR stood out because of its mixture of gameplay styles. The series has received mixed to positive reception in both Japan and western countries: the majority of praise has been given to its story and characters, while the gameplay has been criticized for repetitiveness. NieR: Automata seems to have finally broken this trend, releasing to excellent reviews and being showered with praise in both the gameplay and story departments.


Tropes that appear in the series as a whole:

  • 100% Completion: Traditionally, each game in the series requires you to get all weapons, which usually requires the completion of most sidequests, before you can view the final two endings. Most are easier said than done.
  • After the End:
    • In 856 AD something happened known only as the Great Disaster, when a huge earthquake struck in the Iberian Peninsula and the Cathedral City suddenly appeared overnight. This released all kinds of mysterious creatures on the world and led to the current state of the setting of Drakengard. It also led to the appearance of "Singularities", unique conditions that can cause the timeline to split, as seen in the multiple endings of each game.
    • The NieR setting takes place centuries after the modern world was devastated by White Chlorination Syndrome and most of the human race was killed by it. NieR:Automata takes place further down the road than even that.
  • All There in the Manual: See that big list of side materials? That's where you'll find most of the worldbuilding and and backstory of the Drakengard world.
  • Alternate History: Both Drakengard and Nier take place in alternate elaborately interconnected versions of our world where a certain event in 856 AD lead to the introduction of magic and the supernatural. The Drakengard trilogy takes place around the Iberian Peninsula in Europe (the world map from the first game is an inverted version of that region, and is named "Midgard" here) circa the 11th century whereas Nier and related works generally take place in what used to be Tokyo.
  • Alternate Timeline: Each game has multiple endings that work this way. The spin-off series NieR's storyline follows directly from Ending E of the first Drakengard, while Drakengard 2 follows Ending A or one close to it. In Drakengard 3, the character Accord records and moves between these "Branches".
  • Ambiguous Situation: Yoko Taro is a strong proponent of Death of the Author which is the reason a lot of the series' lore is ambiguous, confusing and secretive; by his own admission, he prefers to see himself not as an all-knowing deity of the lore but as a fan who is "discovering information" much like any other player, and his interpretation of events that he himself wrote is not necessarily meant to be absolute. He also expressed some regret over how he handled Grimoire Nier (the first Nier's Universe Compendium book) where he put too much of his thoughts on paper (though even then there's a metric ton of unexplained and ambiguous details and even new mysteries altogether).
  • Anyone Can Die: No character is safe. Not even the main characters, as there are endings where many of the cast die in some form.
  • Arc Words:
    • "I. Hear. A. Sound." or a different translation thereof ("Oto ga kikoeru" in Japanese, invariably rendered as "オト ガ キ コエ ル"). Originally the verse description of Drakengard's final mission, it's an ominous phrase that pops up across the games and in side materials and is strongly tied to the Watchers and the eerie sounds they're associated with.
    • "ACGT", a chain of letters that are hidden in the various magical incantations spread throughout the series written in the celestial script. They refer to Adenine, Cytosine, Guanine and Thymine, a.k.a. the bases that make up part of the DNA molecule.
  • Contrasting Sequel Main Character: In the Drakengard series, Caim is a bloodthirsty Ax-Crazy Sociopathic Hero only saved from Villain Protagonist status by The Empire he fights being worse. In the sequel, he's something of an antagonist and the protagonist, Nowe, is a fairly standard Wide-Eyed Idealist who doesn't know things he logically should. The fact that they're related, as Nowe is Inuart and Furiae's posthumous son and thus Caim's nephew, makes this even more notable. Zero is a brutal Anti-Hero who slaughters every enemy she comes across and seems as close as Caim to being a Villain Protagonist, only she has noble intentions to save the world from being destroyed by the puppets of an Eldritch Abomination flower.
  • Cosmic Horror Story: A nebulous example; humanity, and sometimes their creations as well as nonhuman life, constantly seem to be under the existential threat of something that's trying to wipe them all out across all timelines and is possibly threatening to destroy spacetime as we know it, but it's never made exactly clear what is the source and why any of this is happening. The most prominent connecting thread appears to be God, but it remains unknown what type of existence this supposed "God" really is, as a cursory look at the franchise as a whole makes it seem as if the universe itself is bending over backwards to try and find new ways to destroy mankind. Whatever the case, red eyes are always an extremely bad sign that the end is nigh.
  • Crapsack World: Pretty much. Sometimes less so than others, but still pretty crappy regardless.
  • Dark Fantasy: Occasionally delves into some Cosmic Horror Story tropes as well.
  • Deconstruction: The series is known for deconstructing various storytelling and RPG tropes, with an especially strong emphasis on Grey-and-Gray Morality, the nature of war and protagonists which are at worst villainous and at best "good people" that have reasonable motives but fail to see things from the perspective of those they consider evil, typically to horrifying results. That being said, it's also a Decon-Recon Switch as Yoko Taro stated that he doesn't write scenarios that are too constantly introspective and realistic (which leads to Too Bleak, Stopped Caring) and instead allows a lot of room for conventional storytelling and RPG tropes that are played perfectly straight, which allows the deconstructive elements to stand out when they do show up. And then there's Drakengard 2 which wasn't written by Yoko Taro and is not really deconstructive at all.invoked
  • Divine Conflict: God / the Watchers and the Holy Dragons (the ancestors of the dragons) have been in a recurring one, though it's unclear how long it has been going on for and how it started. All that is known is that the dragons were once in a position of divinity which they were forced out of by the former and were turned into their underlings, and are now biding their time and waiting for a chance to strike back, which becomes an important plot point in Drakengard 2.
  • Dysfunction Junction: If someone doesn't have a problem within the world of Drakengard, chances are that they're probably going to be dead sooner than later. Nowe and Eris are by far the closest thing to a normal person in here but even they still got issues.
  • "Everybody Dies" Ending: A number of endings of the games will feature the entire cast being killed off.
  • Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Elves, fairies, ogres, sea serpents, eldritch demon-angels and dragons are real, and so are aliens, time travelers from the future and mechanical lifeforms.
  • Flower Motifs: Most of the games share a recurring use of flowers as some form of symbolism. Drakengard 3 and NieR make the most use of it due to plot reasons, but from NieR onward, each game has flowers play some form of importance.
  • Formula with a Twist: The franchise was conceived when its creator, Yoko Taro, expressed confusion about how games and their players could casually enjoy death and killing. Each of his games have thus centered around themes of life and death, exploring what it means to die (and to be "alive" for that matter). This has resulted in some of the darkest, most bizarre and existentially-engaging games in the RPG genre.
  • From Bad to Worse: "It Got Worse: The Franchise". One thing one always can be certain of in this series is that no matter how grim things get, it can always get worse. A lot.
  • Genre Roulette:
    • Yoko Taro has stated that one of his main goals when making new games is to make them as different from each other as possible, which is why all games in the series take place in different types of worlds despite sharing a continuity, narrative themes and gameplay style.
    • Within the games themselves it's not uncommon for there to be a sudden Unexpected Gameplay Change every now and then, with common genres being rhythm games, shmups and visual novels. Nier even has a segment that's a parody of the first Resident Evil.
  • Greater-Scope Paragon: Accord of Drakengard 3 is possibly one for the franchise as a whole, as she is an android (or a Hive Mind thereof, though there is an unknown "original Accord" somewhere out there) from the era of NieR: Automata created to "observe" the multiverse for reasons that are not fully explained but appear to be related to fixing the series' Stable Time Loop which is currently placing the games in a self-fulfilling cycle of destruction, and/or preventing a "Fall Down", a phenomenon wherein one (or all) timelines get completely annihilated. That being said, even she does not seem to fully understand the whole picture, especially with regards to the "God" mentioned below, and she's explicitly forbidden from directly interfering with the timeline.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: God (or "the gods" in earlier English translations). It tends to serve as the central unseen antagonist for the whole series, and its influence is felt in every game, even ones where it is not outright stated to be connected to. What this God and its "angels" (the Watchers) exactly are is one of the series' most enduring mysteries.
  • Grey-and-Grey Morality: Most of the conflict in the series isn't "good versus evil" so much as it is "people trying to protect the interests of their own social group/species/loved ones versus other people trying to do the same thing". Characters that attempt to bridge the gap via communication or compromises will usually be crushed under the weight of the partisan conflicts or unwittingly make things worse for everybody. Perspective Flips are often employed to show how little it takes for characters that initially seemed "evil" to be sympathetic and "heroes" to be murderers. There are occasionally conflicts that involve irredeemably evil forces or alien/incomprehensible threats, but there are few characters that are fully without sin (and survive long enough to cause meaningful change).
  • Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: While it did start somewhat confusingly, it was still relatively straightforward. Then numerous extra materials and installments added even more depth to the Drakengard world, and with the inclusion of numerous alternate timelines things start to get hard to keep track of. This is mitigated somewhat by the continuity between titles being rather vague (with the exception of Drakengard 2). Therefore, knowledge of past entries or of the overarching universe is not necessary to play the games.
  • MacGuffin Super-Person: A person (or sometimes an artifact or a place) whose effect on causality is so massive that it leads to the creation of new timelines ("Shifts") is known as a "Singularity" and they serve as an important subject of observation by the likes of the Administrators from Nier and Accord. They appear to be Immune to Fate for better and for worse as most of them are Unwitting Instigators of Doom whose relentless attempt to fight against destiny lead to less-than-favorable results in the timelines they helped create. Thus far, the characters explicitly named as Singularities in various games/guidebooks are Caim (of both Drakengard 1 and the alternate timeline novel Drakengard 1.3), Nowe, Nier (both Replicant Nier and the Shadowlord/Gestalt Nier), Kainé, and all Intoners (no word regarding Automata characters yet). The term has also been thrown around in Sinoalice but its connections to this franchise and its Singularities are somewhat unclear.
  • Magic A Is Magic A: "Magic" in the series is defined In-Universe as "the process of creating something out of nothing by drawing on energy from other dimensions", made possible by strange particles which were dubbed "Maso" in the Nier universe. Maso happens to be potentially extremely dangerous to humans; only certain forms of life that are "beyond human" can use them safely (such as Gestalts and Ultimate Weapons in Nier and pact-bearers in Drakengard). The presence of Maso played a huge part in locking the universe in a Stable Time Loop that prevents it from becoming our normal magic-less world, but anything beyond that is largely unknown other than the fact that it probably came from "God" in its relentless quest to destroy humanity.
  • Magically-Binding Contract: One of the core concepts of the setting is Pacts, which allow humans (or elves) to make a contract with beings of different species such as fairies, dragons, golems or elementals for power at the cost of "the trait that's most important to oneself", which can range from things like eyesight or sense of taste to being unable to age or die or grow hair. The Pact central to the backstory of the NieR setting is more one-sided; those who become infected with White Chlorination Syndrome either die or must make a Pact with the God of Drakengard and join the Legion.
  • Multiple Endings: All games in the series have multiple endings which generally all need to be viewed to experience the plot in full, and as such are designed in a way that clearing the "first ending" is technically just the midpoint of the games. Very rare to have an Earn Your Happy Ending. All endings are canon due to branching timelines (a concept explored most thoroughly in Drakengard 3), and Drakengard 2 and NieR stem from different endings of Drakengard.
  • Our Dragons Are Different: Dragons are among the most powerful of magical creatures, often cynical, proud and not big fans of humans. They share a collective memory of sorts that allows them to evolve physically and mentally depending on their circumstances. They're also servants of "God", though they have no real allegiance to it as they were more or less been enslaved after an ancient war and would like nothing more than to strike back.
  • Recurring Element: It wouldn't be a Taro Yoko game without them:
    • A very handsome early-adult-to-late-teenaged boy who hides some dark opinions underneath his seemingly normal exterior. Caim, Brother!Nier, and 9S.
    • A very Fanservicey woman wearing Stripperiffic clothing who hates her current circumstances and is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold. Kainé, Zero, 2B and A2.
      • A romance including one or two of the above that is doomed to fail for one reason or another. Caim and his sister due to his rejection on the grounds that he finds incest disgusting, Nier and Kainé because of circumstances, and 2B and 9S due to the In Love with the Mark relationship they share.
    • A motherly figure is revealed to be in on a dark secret and/or is responsible for the current state of affairs by proxy. Zero, Popola and Devola, and the Commander.
    • Something that shouldn't have human emotions is found to exhibit them. Often the main character's assist character. Angelus, Weiss, and now the Pods.
    • A computer-like character meant to oversee the events of the story due to the story being an experiment of some sort, and is tasked with ending it once all data was collected, but then they ultimately choose to go against it because they have come to believe in the protagonists' efforts. Accord and the Pods.
    • Artificial beings who were supposed to be empty shells mysteriously develop human behavior. The replicants, the YoRHa androids and the Machine Lifeforms.
    • A Too Good for This Sinful Earth character who always gets the short end of the stick and either gets killed off or sacrifices themself in some way to save their friends and loved ones. Seere, Mikhail, Emil, and Pascal.
    • Events transpire to turn a young person into a psychopath with an insatiable grudge against a group and their followers, whether they deserve it or not. Caim against the Empire/anybody who isn't his friend in Drakengard, the younger smith brother against machines in NieR, Zero against Intoners but with a very good reason in Drakengard 3, 9S against Machine Lifeforms.
    • Due to the action or inaction of the adults caring for them, children suffer horribly.
    • Violence perpetrated by the player is heavily chastised.
    • Red eyes on a character as a sign of intense hatred and/or hostility.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: In this series, red eyes are never a good sign since it signals the Watchers' influence, be it the Red Eye Disease of Drakengard, the Legion of NieR's backstory, or the Logic Virus of NieR: Automata. In fact, Word of God is that these are all linked somehow.
  • Running Gag: "Thank you so, so much for playing"!note . A sadistic parody of Thanking the Viewer, this phrase is spoken with utmost joy by Manah after clearing all the endings of the first game in a way that serves as the cherry on top of the insanity sundae that is Ending E. The phrase reached meme status in Japan immediately after the game's release and has since become synonymous with the ending itself and other similarly-bleak endings in different media. It's since been used in every game in the series, often in a similar context, except for Drakengard 2 where the sound byte from the first game is played in reverse in the game's opening. Nier's "parting greeting" has the main cast come together to try and say the phrase, and in Drakengard 3 Accord says the phrase to the player as according to Yoko Taro she's meant to be peeking into our dimension and examining the way it influences her own. However, the phrase is genuinely played straight in the final ending of Automata, where the Pods directly address the player.
  • Science Fantasy: The series combines gods, magic and dragons with androids, aliens and robots.
  • Snow Means Death: Out-of-season snow is a recurring sight in the series, best seen in the intro to Nier; it's not actually snow, but rather the particles of White Chlorination Syndrome spreading.
  • Stable Time Loop:
    • Heavily implied that the setting is tied together through one. The background lore for the Drakengard setting reveals that its world was once our world, until a more modern city suddenly appeared on the European continent, causing fantasy elements to spawn from it and magic to come into existence. This was called the "Great Disaster" and completely reshaped the land into a more fantasy-like one named Midgard. The last ending of the first game ends with Caim and Angelus in roughly modern-day Tokyo, causing the events of NieR after they defeat the Final Boss and are shot down. It's implied that these two events are connected to each other in some way, and that both events created a loop of some kind, which is further strengthened by the setting's usage of words like "over and over again" and cycles being a recurring element of each game.
    • Later confirmed in the 10th Anniversary Livestream for NieR. The skyscrapered Cathedral City of Drakengard came from the era of the Alien War in NieR: Automata's backstory, and was working on bio-engineered weapons prior to being yanked into the past of Drakengard — the Dragons are confirmed, but presumably also all the other monsters of the Drakengard world that don't have another confirmed origin. It's also where the recorder android Accord was created.
  • Tenuously Connected Flavor Text: All weapons in the games have their own Flavor Text in the form of Weapon Stories, which are 4 short passages that are unlocked as you upgrade the weapons. Some of them are fairly straightforward backstories, others are ambiguous tales that only indirectly relate to the weapon at hand. Plot-related weapons will often reveal tidbits of lore or character motivations that are otherwise unmentioned. There are some hints that the weapon stories are written In-Universe by Accord.
  • Tidally Locked Planet: In the backstory leading up to Nier (following up from Ending E of Drakengard), a certain unclear series of events in the 27th century that involved the moon being partially shattered or something lead to Earth's axis shifting in a way that locks part of the world (roughly the Asia-Pacific region) in Endless Daytime while the rest of the earth is in perpetual nighttime. The games take place exclusively in the former region (specifically the area where Japan used to be, more specifically the Kanto region), which is the reason night never seems to fall.
  • Timey-Wimey Ball:
    • The Multiverse that the series takes place in is governed by a concept called "Great Time" (大いなる時間), a term that as per the 10th anniversary book refers to the totality of "time", "space" and "dimensions" in all of existence; every world in the multiverse has its own "time" and "space" with their own branches, whereas "dimensions" are shared across parallel worlds and are causally linked to one another (hence Caim & co. traveling across dimensions in Ending E of the first game). The Seals' true purpose is to keep out the mysterious force trying to destroy Great Time, and the breaking of the Seals can lead to a Time Crash that would potentially destroy all of existence.
    • The above explanation comes with the small caveat that it may be all a complete and utter lie. Ending E of Drakengard 3 (which is exclusive to the novelization but is the one that leads to Drakengard 1) introduces the idea that "Great Time" is a makeshift theological explanation given retroactively by the Cult of the Watchers to a bizarre unexplained curse which was successfully "contained" by sheer happenstance with no one understanding how or why, but they decided to take credit for it regardless and developed the Seals and Goddesses system to keep up appearances. It is true that the series takes place in an intricate web of timelines and dimensions, and the Seals are helping protect the world from something that is trying to mess with time or reality itself, but no one In-Universe (or out of it) thus far has been able to define exactly what.
  • Theme Naming: Most groups in the games follow a theme of some sort:
    • The dragons are all given angelic names (Angelus, Legna, Michael/Mikhail), which highlights their status as underlings or "tools" of God.
    • The Goddesses of the Seal are, appropriately, named after mythological goddesses. Furiae (from Furies), Asherah and Eris, which is a double whammy with the Drakengard 2 naming scheme mentioned below.
    • In Drakengard 1 most human characters are named after demons, primarily ones from Ars Goetia, Dictionnaire Infernal and other such grimoires (Caim, Gaap, Seere, Leonard...).
    • In Drakengard 2 the new characters are named after obscure early 00s computer viruses (Nowe = BAT_NOWE.A, Eris = VBS.Eris.A, Urick = W32/Urick, Gismor = W32/Gismor...).
    • In Drakengard 3 the Intoners are named after English numbers (Zero, One, Two...) while their Disciples' names are derived from Greco-Roman numbers (Dito, Octa, Cent...).
    • In Nier, most Shades and human characters are named after fairy tales or their authors, with each community centering around specific works (Seafront = The Little Mermaid, the Aerie = Peter Pan, Junk Heap = The Adventures of Pinocchio...). The exceptions are Facade, whose residents are named after German numbers (though nearby Shades have Arabian Nights related names) and some of the main characters, who officially weren't written to follow a specific theme.
    • In Nier Automata, the Machine Lifeforms are named after philosophers and often have quirks that are related to their namesakes' beliefs (Pascal, Plato, Kierkegaard...). The YoRHa units meanwhile are simply named after their production number + the initial of their unit type (2B, 9S, A2...). Also, the androids of the Resistance introduced in the stage plays are named after flowers (Anemone, Rose, Lily...).
  • Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe: Shinjuku to be exact, and "center of the universe" might be an understatement depending on your view of the lore. Drakengard 1's Ending E has Caim, Angelus and the Queen Beast teleport from the Imperial Capital to real-life Shinjuku, an event which would lead to the introduction of magic to that world and build up to the events of Nier. Shinjuku would later lose its importance note ; however, there's evidence to suggest that Shinjuku is one and the same as Drakengard's Imperial Capital, which is in turn one and the same as Cathedral City, the city that was transferred from the world of Nier to Drakengard's year 856 note , which was equivalent the real world before this event introduced magic to it. To summarize: Tokyo is the epicenter of an enormous Temporal Paradox which could be the reason the whole universe is stuck in a Stable Time Loop of destruction and misery.
  • White Hair, Black Heart: Ever since NieRnote , all protagonists have white hair, and nearly all of them usually get broken in their experiences, are unintentionally a Villain Protagonist in any part of their story, or started like that.

Thank you so, so much for playing!

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