Can a video game be considered a work of "art"?

It's a simple question... that lacks a simple answer. Yet "art" is the precise term I would use to describe NieR: Automata, having experienced it in its entirety. It's easy to write off this game as a simplistic hack'n'slash game featuring archetypal, scantily clad androids that exists to perpetuate the over-the-top anime genre but such a description is a woefully superficial and frankly, rudimentary critique of what NieR: Automata truly is beneath its skin.

Give this game a chance; It will do you justice.

The Story
When you read a good book, watch a good film and indeed, finish a good game, there is a certain "melancholy" that follows you around for a while. An "empty" or "hollow" feeling that manifests itself after you've realised you just experienced a great work of fiction. This is precisely what I felt upon reaching the credits of NieR: Automata. There are moments of joy, sadness, frustration, humour, tenderness, bravado and deeply thought provoking events contained within the story. Put simply, NieR's story doesn't just hit every tonal beat that is present, it does it in a way that is genuinely impactful. Brilliantly written and beautifully told.

One thing that is important to note, however, is that the game requires you to complete multiple playthroughs to properly understand the full scope of the narrative (3 times to be specific). "How tedious!", one might remark and yes, that might be off-putting to some but each playthrough is unique and told through a different perspective, complete with new cutscenes, dialogue, (side) quests and gameplay differences. The third playthrough in particular is entirely unique compared to first and the second. As such, I highly recommend that you see the game to its end (if you have the time).

The Soundtrack
If there is one thing that can make or break a scene, it's the music. NieR's original score is truly, truly one of a kind. Whether you're roaming the open world freely, watching a cutscene or focussing on a main mission, the music never fails to complement the situation you might find yourself in. I rarely find myself listening to video game music casually in my spare time but NieR's music is indeed something special.

Characters
The cast of NieR may not as expansive and exhaustive as say the Mass Effect series but what it does have is a tight-knit cast complete with their own agendas, personalities and motivations. Even the machines, who are purposely designed to appear robotic and artificial, display forms of genuine emotion and anthropomorphic behaviours/tendencies. Thanks to the excellent writing, you can easily feel for these characters and empathise with their plight(s). And while the cast is (more or less) universally synthetic and "artifical", their interactions, their chemistry, their struggles and yes, their emotions are very much real and organic. Much like you, the reader, and myself.

The Combat
Being a FromSoftware veteran I was naturally accustomed to the controls in the Soulsborne games so it took a few hours to break those habits. Though when I finally did, the combat system was very rewarding, much like the Souls games. In essence, NieR is a hack’n’slash title which emphasises combos and chains to overwhelm your enemies similar to the Devil May Cry series (just to give a comparison point). While it’s true that you can cruise through the combat portions by just spamming the basic attacks, such a playstyle will quickly prove to be monotonous and “unrewarding”. Mix and match your weapons, abilities, chipsets, inputs, combos and the game will shine.

There is also Hacking which serves as another form of combat but I’ll get to that later.

The World
The open world in NieR isn't as luscious and lovingly detailed as Red Dead Redemption 2's or as packed full of hidden dungeons and secrets like Skyrim/Oblivion's but it is designed well and is thematically appropriate for its setting and atmosphere. The open world fits the narrative quite snugly and the game does take advantage of the world as best as it can but ultimately it can feel a bit too "empty" or "ponderous" at times which necessitated the fast travel mechanic more times than I'd personally have liked. By no means "horrible" or "bad" in any sense but at times it can get a little tedious. All in all, it's simply just fine.

The Side Quests
Ok so I’m quite torn on this one. There’s good news and bad news but let’s start with the good news first:

The good news is that the side quests add a lot of character development, context, lore and genera insight into the characters, world et cetera. These are actually rewarding to complete and their respective backstories are intriguing to say the least. If you want to actively understand the whos, whats, wheres, whys and hows of the characters/world, the side quests do an outstanding job of contextualising the game.

The bad news is that the overwhelming majority of side quests simply boil down to fetch quests or “wipe out these enemies”. Strictly in a gameplay sense, it’s not very involved at all and it exists solely to engage the player because you know… it’s a video game, not a film or show. No puzzles or deep thinking to speak of really; noticeably simplistic in the gameplay regard.

So yeah. It’s a love/hate relationship.

The Hacking
As I mentioned before, hacking is the second form of combat in this game. You can use it to control your enemies, stun them, detonate them and turn them against each other.

The caveat is that you have to initiate and complete a little mini-game every single time you want to hack an enemy. NieR is a fast paced action game so the hacking mini-game disrupts the flow of combat IMO. Of course you could just refuse to hack anything but you’d be handicapping yourself quite a lot (especially in your second playthrough).

PC Port Quality
My one and only major complaint with NieR is that the PC port isn't really up to scratch even now in 2022. It's locked to 60 FPS and pretty much all of the cutscenes are pre-rendered with low bitrates and resolutions. As such the transitions from gameplay to cutscenes is not at all seamless/fluid. There's also the fact that the loading times are significantly longer running an unmodded, vanilla game for some inexplicable reason. And yes, this was installed on an (NVMe) SSD.

To solve these issues, I installed Special K's mod (and FAR) which removed the framerate cap and improved loading times from 5-12 seconds to 1-3 seconds on average. I'd definitely recommend that new players install both FAR and Special K to alleviate these issues.

Back to that original question that I began with: "Can a video game be considered a work of "art"?"

What would I describe NieR: Automata as other than a work of art? A masterpiece? A magnum opus? In my honest opinion, it is all of these things... and more. Words cannot do this game justice; it is an experience. One that is best left to the player to interpret, decipher and eventually comprehend. It is not perfect but hell, even with its flaws it showcases the power of this great medium not through spectacle or grandeur but through subtlety and delicacy.

To end, I will write a little haiku inspired by 9S (Spoilers!):

"Memories of her,
A purpose worth fighting for,
Lest worth dying for."

I'm at odds with myself over this game. On one hand, I thoroughly enjoyed my experience with the game but at the same time, it just didn't resonate with me as strongly as The Witcher 3 did. Not saying it's a bad game per se but it definitely has its strengths and weaknesses.

The World: Night City
Now if there is something that I am completely certain on, it's the game world. Simply put, Night City is a visual and aesthetic masterpiece. Now there are plenty of adjectives to describe the game but I can safely say without a doubt that "ugly" is not among them. The cityscape and vistas of Night City are legitimately among the most visually awe-inspiring sights I have seen in a game, largely in part of the lighting and scale. Driving on the wet roads at night with ray-tracing enabled is an experience that is seldom found in other games.

The Story
While the main story of Cyberpunk doesn't reach the same heights and climaxes compared to The Witcher 3 (partly due to its short length of ~25 hrs), I'd be lying if I said I didn't find myself enjoying it for what it was. Johnny Silverhand's character in particular really grew on me throughout my playthrough. Make no mistake, Johnny is an a**hole through and through but at the same time he exudes a kind of "charm" or "charisma" that makes him lovable. And by the time you yourself reach the end of the story, you almost pity him in a way. Overall, I'd say that the story was interesting enough for me to see it to the end but nothing exceptional or groundbreaking to distinguish it from other games of similar calibre.

But honestly, the best story aspects of the game in my opinion come in the form of the extended side quest sequences with other supporting characters. The respective stories involving Judy, Panam, River, Kerry (and co.) and so on are where Cyberpunk shines it brightest. These experiences provide a much needed "breath of fresh air" to distract you from the main story.

The Sound + Music
Now I am by no means an expert in sound or music so I can't really give an in-depth commentary on this particular topic. However, I can without a doubt say that both the original score and sound design in this game are excellently composed and mixed. When it comes to music everyone has their personal tastes obviously but I personally really dug the soundtracks.

The Gameplay
Cyberpunk's gameplay is simply "fine" for the most part. There's plenty of builds and routes you can take from your average gun/melee build to a finely tuned hacking/netrunning build. Gameplay can range from slow to fast pace depending on your build but it lacks the high octane action or adrenaline pumping nature that DOOM: Eternal boasts or the colourful, vibrant and flamboyant gameplay of the Borderlands series just to give two examples. It's not horrible or even bad by any means but if I had to describe it in a few words, the gameplay is satisfactory and decent (mostly).

The Choice Aspect
Eh, it wouldn't be correct to say that your choices don't have any impact on the game but at the same time it also wouldn't be correct to say that your choices have massive, consequences that reverberate throughout the game world. The choices can be almost "cryptic" in this game; they're not inherently obvious to the player upon first glance but they are nonetheless present in the game. To tell you the truth, I personally think that the brunt of the "branching/diverging storyline" is compressed into the final moments of the game and while I certainly wouldn't say that the choices you have made up until this point are superficial or pointless, I'm hesitant to label them as deeply impactful either.

The AI
I'll keep this one short. Generally, the AI isn't horrible but the difference between 2015's The Witcher 3 and this game isn't really night and day. Pedestrian/civilian AI is virtually identical to The Witcher 3's pedestrian/civilian AI; they're basically fodder NPCs that are there to populate the world with minimal interaction with the player.

Enemy AI is simply alright. Nothing to brag about or exceptional worth mentioning.

The Performance
Not much to say about this one. I ran the game on a 9900K/3090/64GB DDR4 @3200MHz with Psycho RTX + Quality DLSS and it ran decently for the most part. While the performance wasn't as great as I had hoped, the game was 100% playable from start to finish for me. Actually, this game performs very similar to Watch Dogs: Legion in my opinion so if you (the reader) own that game, it could be used as a comparison tool.

The Lifepaths
I'm just going to be blunt here: The lifepaths don't really matter in the grand scheme of the game.

Each lifepath has a 30-40 minute unique intro sequence that sets the context and background of the game but they quickly all converge into the same main story after the intro is over. You also get one unique sidequest per lifepath which is cool if you're trying to squeeze out every bit of content the game has to offer. But after the intro sequence is over, a Nomad V is functionally identical to a Street Kid or Corpo V. Game plays out the exact same way from that point onwards regardless of your path but occasionally you'll get a unique dialogue option during a conversation that is specific to your chosen lifepath.

Maybe I'm being a bit harsh here but I legitimately wouldn't mind it if they just completely took out this function and just focused on a single, predetermined lifepath.

The Police
Under normal circumstances, the police would have been grouped under the AI section of this review but that's the thing: The police in Cyberpunk 2077 are anything but normal. Back when I finished my first playthrough (January 2021), the entire police system could best be described as "rudimentary". Essentially when you commit a crime, the police spawn instantaneously at your location without warning or delay. If you pay attention to the minimap, you can actually see the red dots appearing out of thin air just mere seconds after having committed a crime.

Needless to say, this particular game system would benefit from an overhaul or at least further tweaking.

The Interactivity with the Game World
While the vistas and skylines of Night City are among the absolute visuals the game industry has to offer, there is unfortunately very little in the way of interactivity or forms of engagement with the actual game world. Back in The Witcher 3, players had Gwent as a minigame which offered a form of diversion and catharsis from the main plot. To put it simply, there is no analogous minigame or side activity in Cyberpunk 2077. While you can just aimlessly free roam the city in your vehicle, there is very little you can interact with outside of main missions and side missions. It just feels wrong that there is this magnificent and beautifully hand-crafted city right in front of your eyes but there is so little you, the player, can do to interact and immerse yourself in it.

Despite it's glaring flaws, I would still recommend Cyberpunk 2077 (though preferably on a sale). It is by no means a horrible or bad game and in my experience I enjoyed the game in its entirety and the time I spent with it. The seeds and roots of a great game are present but more than anything, the game clearly required significantly more time to germinate and sprout into the blossoming tree the developers and the studio envisioned.

At it's current state I would describe Cyberpunk 2077 as a flawed but nonetheless enjoyable experience.