9 Entries in the NieR Franchise You May Not Know About

NieR is an action-RPG video game series created by Yoko Taro in 2010. In the decade since the initial debut of this niche franchise, NieR has fought to reach a larger audience. As you may already know, the NieR series finally achieved this in 2017 with the release of NieR: Automata. This sci-fi post-apocalyptic title was showered in acclaim from all who played it. Plus, it had an extra push in popularity from a variety of YouTube channels.

NieR: Automata is only a brief glimpse into the world of NieR, however. Fortunately, a remake of the first entry in the series, titled NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139…, has been announced for PC, PS4, and Xbox One, and will possibly release sometime this year.

While the original NieR Replicant is a good starting place for fans of Automata and newcomers to the series, there are far more pieces of NieR material than you may realize. Let’s take a look at nine NieR series entries you may not know about.

Drakengard 3

Drakengard is a relatively unknown action-RPG series created by Yoko Taro, as well. There were three entries in this franchise, each of which had multiple endings. The end of Drakengard 3, however, had a very specific ending entitled “Ending E” that actually kicks off the NieR series.

NieR was not an obvious spin-off of Drakengard 3, whatsoever. It took players delving into the rich backstory of the original NieR game to make the connections to Drakengard 3 more apparent, but the links have confirmed that both series are connected to each other. While the Drakengard series is pretty hard to play these days and is far different than that of NieR: Automata, the story of how these two franchises play into each other is well worth researching.

‘The Red and the Black’ novella

NieR is a series that thrives with supplemental material. Of course, the games provide all of the context you need within them, but the series is more fully fleshed out in side stories such as novellas.

One of these novellas is titles The Red and the Black. This story follows the titular main character of NieR, providing backstory as to who he was before the events of the game. While this is an interesting story, it may be wise to wait until after playing the NieR: Replicant remake before reading it.