Count me among those who aren't terribly impressed with the Nier Automata raids thus far.

The Copied Factory setting up the plot with a bunch of mystery boxes was one thing, but we're two acts into a three act story now. Only one of those boxes has been opened: "Who is 2P?" That answer came along with a host of other mysteries, meaning that it's all up to Act Three to explain why all of what we've seen has happened. That's a tall order for any writer, and it's entirely reasonable to be concerned that Yoko Taro won't be able to pull that off—and that's if he even tries to.

But that's not the real problem with the Automata raids, I think. The truth is, the overall story thus far has been painfully sparse. This is partly the fault of the story's format—Three Allied Raids and the quests surrounding them is a far cry from a full length RPG, to say nothing of 2 1/2 full length RPGs (which Nier Automata kind of is). But previous raids were able to do more with the space they had than the Automata raids thus far.

So to be frank, I don't expect the final raid to make good use of the space it has, and I don't see how it can. That doesn't mean I'm not hoping for it to turn out great—just that I'm not exactly holding my breath anymore.

As an aside, 2P is actually kind of interesting and it's a shame she had to die to make that happen.