Right, then... [Nier: Automata/Copied Factory] [Spoilers]

[purgatori]

(If their aim is to encourage FFXIV fans to go play the other games, it's not working for me. Maybe I'm just being stubborn and digging my heels in, but I'm not going to go and play a game I wasn't interested in just so I can understand this one.

If we're going to liberally throw shoulds around in this thread, then I would suggest that the reason you should play these games is because they are both amazing. That doing so will render their crossovers in FFXIV more enjoyable is just a bonus, really.

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Back on the merger of these seemingly-disparate worlds. An infinite multiverse is a sufficient explanation for how Earth and Hydaelyn can inhabit the same reality, but I think this would be fairly lazy and uninteresting (not that this would have a big impact unless it was the main focus of the story). Some sort of fusion would be much more interesting, e.g:

(Spoilers for both FFXIV & games in the Drakengard/Nier universe follow)

- Nier's Earth represents a possible (?) distant-future of a world that underwent rejoining.
- We're still waiting to find out what the connection between the Watchers/the Cult of Watchers and the machines of NieR might be. This has been something that Taro has been keeping close to his chest ever since he alluded to this using an image that appeared on Adam's chest. Could it be that the Watchers exert their influence across dimensions in order to inspire the creation of machines that will ultimately rise up and exterminate higher-order organic life?

There is no way we are not going to be getting more information about what is going on. All the Yoko Taro games I've played/watched follow the same over-all pattern of dumping the player character into one situation and then not really explaining how the situation got to be the way it is until the 3rd Act of the story. The bigger question is if the information we will be getting is going to answer any of the questions we want answered...

So true. If I had the faintest idea of what was going on, I'd think something had gone wrong in the writing room. One thing I'm sure of is that it's canon for both properties. I doubt that Taro would waste his time on something that contributed nothing at all to the universe he was been building for almost two decades now. For all his wackiness, self-deprecation, and feigned nonchalance, he obviously cares deeply about what he has created... Deeply enough that even his joke endings go on to be more than mere throwaways lol