Availability: Out on PC, Xbox One and PS4 on April 23rd
Nier Replicant begins with a scene in which protagonist Nier tries to defend his sick sister Yonah from a large number of encroaching monsters called Shades, before an abrupt timeskip takes you over 1000 years into the future. The young man you control now shares his name with his counterpoint from the past, and he too has a sick sister he wants to save. Before you can find out how these two things are connected, you have to follow a rudimentary JRPG story for around ten hours.
Nier (or whatever name you decide to give him) spends his time being directed from A to B by a woman named Popola, who yes, big nudge, is one of the characters connecting this game to Automata. In an old temple, Nier meets a talking book called Grimoire Weiss, who gives him the power to defeat even Shades he was previously powerless against. He is then told that if he collects more abilities for the grimoire in the form of so-called Sealed Verses, and finds another book called Grimoire Noir, this will surely save his sister. Over the course of the story, he meets a young woman named Kainé, who swears like a sailor and fights in underwear that shows her entire butt (her only defining characteristics until much, much later), and Emil, who has to keep his eyes hidden because one look from him is enough to turn you to stone.