Transhumanist Characters in Video Games: NieR: Automata

Abstract

Video games as an industry continues to grow in scale and reach new milestones. Accelerated popularity of the medium has surfaced debates among the academia about the nature of video games. For some, video games cannot be considered works of art due the industry’s relation to financial profit. While others are more sympathetic than the former and see the potential ways video games can produce art. With its ever-growing technology, video games provide interesting ways for game designers to make stories and interact with players on various ways. Artistic freedom the medium provides can be an interesting tool for those who wish to fantasize and envision what the future may look like. Video games have explored similar topics of transhumanism and posthumanism that film industry and novels have discussed. The similarity video games have with existing styles of art raise the question if it is about time video games should be considered art. This study focuses on the hot topic of video games as an art form through transhumanist characters seen in video games.