It feels somewhat hard to believe that it’s been seven years since Nier: Automata released, and yet somehow that time has gone by in the blink of an eye. I think the more confusing thing is the fact that Square Enix somehow hasn’t let Yoko Taro and co make a fully fledged sequel, despite the fact it’s managed to sell 8,000,000 copies to date, even resulting in an amped-up remaster of the original game. Sure, there’s the mobile game, but that’s dead now, so I can’t help but feel that there’s a bit of a Nier-shaped hole in my heart at the moment.
There have been a lot of good games that have released over the intervening years, but nothing that scratched the particular itch that Nier: Automata did. Sure, there’s been some exciting action titles, and some hard hitting stories, but Automata’s particular blend of sci-fi, imagining what life is like in a post-human, android-filled world is hard to tap into elsewhere. That is, until, last week, when developer Sunset Visitor released 1000xRESIST, a title so ambitious and impressive I think has finally hit that same sweet spot.
1000xRESIST follows a character by the name of Watcher, a clone of an immortal teenage girl named Iris, herself the last human left alive after aliens known as Occupants brought a disease to our planet earth 1000 years ago. Right off the bat, you can probably see quite clearly how Nier: Automata was an influence, though I’d argue 1000xRESIST amps the Square Enix game’s themes up to, well, 1000. Much like Automata, there are twists and turns galore, and a few secrets that get uncovered too.
