I’ve played both. I’ve also been playing video games for four decades. They’re very different experiences: HZD’s crowning glory is the joy of taking down robot dinosaurs; the varied scenery of the post-apocalyptic world is spectacular, but the backstory is a humdrum hegemonising-swarm AI apocalypse, presented via standard linear storytelling that telegraphs its reveals loudly and crudely, and the characters well produced and acted but narratively underdeveloped and ultimately cliched. It also has the worst puzzles I’ve ever seen in a computer game, so embarrassingly easy they’d be better off removed entirely, and playing it just after The Witness (I can never listen to Grieg ever again) only compounded this gaming felony.

Nier:Automata remains to date the epitome of playable existentialism, and the characters (and their development) frankly unique, cut more from Camus and Japanese theatre than any sci-fi trope. It also presents a vastly more nuanced and integrated narrative structure. The ruined world is creatively, if somewhat allegorically built, some remarkable visual set-pieces but ultimately not as finely drawn as HZD, the regular switches between game styles keep it interesting instead, the range of optional combat moves is amazing (and superbly animated) and there is downright ingenuity to some of the challenges. Still, only one of these games needs a photo mode.

But this topic is ultimately about soundtracks, in which Nier is absolutely superlative and I can’t even remember HZD’s, and observe that the sonic experience is fully one-half of AV.

Long and short of it, I enjoyed both, but for entirely different reasons, and in both cases enough to motivate 100%-ing them.

Not sure what “fandom” is. Sounds like a sex thing though, so I’m hesitant to look.

I played Nier: Automata right after I finished Horizon Zero Dawn back in 2017. They were an interesting study in contrasts. I agree HZD is the better game, and Automata's flaws really wore on me sometimes, but I still liked it on balance. It plays around and gets weird in ways that a bigger-budget release like HZD can't risk. It probably helps that I actually did like the shooter mini-game that this article is about, musical transition and all.