Square Enix announced today Aniplex is producing a new series based on Platinum Games’ critically acclaimed JRPG, Nier: Automata. As part of the games 5th-anniversary livestream event, the publisher announced that the role-playing game is being turned into an anime series at the Sony-owned production company.
Along with the announcement, Aniplex has launched a new website and an official Twitter account for the new show, not to mention a short teaser trailer that hints at the returning protagonist. Check it out below.
As you can see, the series will probably star Automata‘s protagonist 2B, an android struggling with her personal sense of identity and professional sense of duty to mankind.
Nier: Automata takes place in the year 11945 AD in an alternate timeline, where Earth has been overrun by a race of alien machines. The surviving humans have taken refuge on the Moon, and are launching a counterattack to retake their homeworld via android fighters like 2B.
While that serves as a general premise for the story of Nier, or at least this entry, in particular, the secrets players unravel through the course of the narrative essentially turn this trope-filled post-apocalyptic story into one of the most compelling and profound studies on humanity and its existential dread, a story that has already been adapted for different mediums numerous times in the past.
Aniplex is the parent company of acclaimed studios CloverWorks (Wonder Egg Priority) and A-1 Pictures (Sword Art Online), among many more, as well as the owner of streaming platforms Funimation and Crunchyroll. The company and its subsidiaries license and distribute popular shows around the world including Fullmetal Alchemist and Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. That in itself fuels our hype for the upcoming Nier: Automata series, though whether this is an adaptation of the events seen in the game or a sequel set in the same timeline remains to be seen.
