#gameplay structure

When we walk into a large circular room we know there's a boss fight ahead.

When we walk into a room with a save point we know we aren't going to be attacked.

When we see a big monster in the distance we know we're going to fight it.

When we see yellow paint on ledges we know those are climbable.

When we see a character with a special model, we know they're going to be important.

When we see a creature on the overworld that looks mean, it's an enemy, and we're going to fight it.

From a structural standpoint, we can make a lot of assumptions, too. When we enter a new area there's going to be a dungeon crawl and there's going to be a boss fight at the end. When we're in the tutorial we're almost always safe from our own mistakes. When we encounter a boss that's 50 levels above us IN that tutorial, we know it's a hopeless fight.

Automata actually breaches expectation out the gate by making it not only possible to die in the tutorial, but giving you a credit's roll. Mean! But also really funny.

Automata's initial gameplay loop coheres mostly to these expectations-- you enter a new location, you have some freedom to explore, you reach the far end of that location, you fight a boss, you've now opened a loop that allows you to return and explore this area at your leisure. Once you leave, you're given instructions to explore a new area that circumstances have opened up to you, repeat. Between these areas you may or may not get the opportunity to perform sidequests. Eventually the story reaches its climax, you have a fight that takes you across the City Ruins, you win. Roll credits.

After the credits, you're given a chance to start a New Game+.

This is a lie.

Automata does a lot of really clever things that both prey on your expectations while also subconsciously setting you up for those subversions. If you played the original NIER you already suspect something is going to happen with New Game+ because of the franchise expectations, but a lot of people found Automata in isolation and assumed it was a Platinum game, which are very well constructed but usually follow standard linear storytelling conventions. You are not necessarily going in thinking "This is all going to change in New Game+".

But the game does hint at it.

If you DO die in the tutorial, you get that credits roll, and that ending is stamped on your save file. If you want off in the wrong direction during the Engels attack you get a credits roll and an ending stamp. If you manage not to die but decide to do Jackass' request and eat her mackerel, you get a credits roll and an ending stamp. You are given ample opportunity, between booting up to killing Eve, to realize that the credits roll is fake.

And that includes the 'end credits'.

The NG+ information box is kind enough to tell you that there's more to the story, and if you jump back in you find things changing immediately, opening up not even on 9S as he performs his side of the mission but on a machine lifeform trying to revive its big brother, directly contiguous with 2B's musings at the end of Route A.

Route B then presents itself as, fundamentally, the same as Route A but with a perspective shift. 2B and 9S are together through most of the missions during the game, so you're performing the same missions a second time with a slightly different moveset. Another clever strucutral point occurs right out the gate, however; the two were not functionally together during the descent mission, meaning that while they are able to communicate, 9S is doing something entirely different in another part of the factory, informing you as a player that once they are separated again approaching the climax, you'll experience another, more important story division.

One could consider this a New Game+ 'bonus' in that you get to see what 2B didn't, but maybe it's not vital to the story. How much of what 9S goes through is really that different?

Other than the actual story being gated behind his perspective, I guess.

New Game+ functions structurally as New Game+, in that you are replaying the events of the game with harder enemies and all your gear intact, but narratively it is vital to understanding what's going on. Maybe it's not a universal thing but I personally felt much more satsified at the end of Route B than I did with Route A, and when the game offers you a Route C, well, I was all over the idea of seeing what A2 was up to while these guys were dealing with Adam and Eve.