NieR (De)Automata: Defamiliarization and the Poetic Revolution of NieR: Automata

Grace Gerrish's essay examines NieR: Automata as a case study for applying Russian Formalist theory to digital games, with particular attention to defamiliarization (ostranenie). The central argument is that games' technical devices, including user interfaces, controls, music, and language, can be subverted to produce poetic effects that renew players' perception and drive the medium's evolution. Drawing on early Formalists such as Shklovsky and Eichenbaum, the work positions Yoko Taro's design as a deliberate balancing act between familiar conventions and disruptive innovation.

The analysis identifies several concrete mechanisms through which the game unsettles expectations. Shifting gameplay styles and perspective changes destabilize the player's sense of genre, while the blending of interface elements with narrative mechanics produces meaning without explicit exposition. Notable examples include a treasure-hunt side quest that tricks players into committing violence and the "chaos language" songs that feel simultaneously familiar and alien. The boundaries between player, mechanics, and narrative are presented as highly permeable, so that the act of playing becomes part of the story's meaning.

The essay also addresses the game's cyclical structure and the apparent "death of the author," arguing that these features grant players interpretive freedom. Repetition, often read as nihilistic, is reframed as generative, opening space for new readings with each cycle. From this perspective, defamiliarization is proposed as a unifying design principle, and a poetological approach to games is advocated in place of static genre classification that emphasizes potentiality over fixed categories.

The concluding argument holds that video games should be valued for their capacity for "generative reevaluation" rather than for untapped content. Contrasting creative experimentation with the dulling effects of automatization, the work presents resistance to habitual perception as essential to both the medium's future and human creativity. The game's title, with "nier" meaning "to deny," serves as a fitting emblem of this stance.