By Allison Watkinson
TLL Reporter
Square Enix’s role-playing sci-fi video game, Nier Automata, has been adapted into a new anime series by Aniplex.
The licensed anime adaptation of the game is scheduled for release in Japan on Jan. 7, 2023, with additional regions to follow. The upcoming series is titled Nier: Automata Ver 1.1a.
The Nier Automata anime series was animated by the Aniplex-owned studio A-1 Pictures. Aniplex is a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment Japan that specializes in anime production, video game publishing, and music.
The Nier Automata video game was published by Square Enix in 2017. It serves as a sequel to the first Nier game, which was released in 2010, and is an expansion to the studio’s long-standing fictional universe, Drakengard.
Square Enix is an international entertainment media conglomerate that is best-known for its fantasy and sci-fi video game franchises.
In addition to holding the licensing rights to the Nier franchise, Square Enix is the licensor and publisher of gaming franchises such as Final Fantasy, Life is Strange, Kingdom Hearts, and more.
The plot of the Nier Automata game follows Android characters in a post-apocalyptic world that are involved in a proxy war between human-engineered androids and alien-created machines.
It is currently unknown what changes the anime will bring to the plot of the game, particularly due to the multiple endings that are possible in the video game’s narrative.