When comparing Detroit: Become Human vs NieR: Automata, the Slant community recommends NieR: Automata for most people. In the question“What are the best singleplayer games on Steam?” NieR: Automata is ranked 43rd while Detroit: Become Human is ranked 104th. The most important reason people chose NieR: Automata is:
The combat in NieR: Automata is fantastic. It has a hack-and-slash feel to it, with an emphasis on agility and showy acrobatics. With the fluid and responsive controls, you can switch seamlessly from using swift attacks with your weapon to devastatingly strong attacks as you combo them together. You also use customizable ranged missile attacks from your personal robot pod, such as powerful laser beams or a giant hammer attack. It can be difficult to win battles sometimes, especially on the harder gameplay settings, but it's worthwhile to keep at it and watch yourself progress and improve.
Specs
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Pros
Pro An ambitious amount of branching paths via player choice
The sheer number of branching choices and outcomes is staggering. After every chapter, the game shows you a flowchart of the choices you made, the paths you unlocked, and which conclusion you arrived to. You get to see the blank spaces for paths you didn't unlock, which shows the surprising scope of how gigantic the script is. Getting to see the percentage of players in the world who unlocked your same outcomes also puts things into perspective. Each decision you make leads to a true a culmination of your choices by the end, encouraging near-infinite different playthroughs.
Pro Impeccable graphics and visuals
Detroit: Become Human has next-level graphics and presentation. Characters look exactly like the actors they're modeled after, down to imperfections like razor bumps on the back of Connor's neck from his perfect, precise haircut. The environments set in the city of Detroit in the year 2038 are also great, showing the sheen of futuristic, automated cars and buses driving down the road, the bustling cultural meccas downtown, and even the grittier, dirtier aspects of the poverty-stricken areas. Everything looks amazing, showing off what games of this console generation can put out in terms of graphics and detail.
Pro The three playable android characters are each great in their own ways
You play as three androids--Connor, Kara, and Markus--all of whom have their own interesting character traits and storylines.
Connor is cold and direct as an investigator for the police, concerned first and foremost about finishing the job by any means necessary. Kara is more docile and mother-like, but determined to protect those she cares about. Markus is the leader who rallies the androids together for their cause for the sake of justice. The three characters intersect in intriguing ways, with Connor maintaining the status quo, Markus upsetting the norm, and Kara wanting to find her own path. But, ultimately, who they are depends on your choices, since your actions are what determine how the protagonists turn out in the end.
Pro The story isn't afraid to tackle social commentary issues like discrimination, politics, and slavery
Detroit: Become Human centers around subservient androids rising up against their human creators, either in peaceful protest or violent revolution. The plot gets into some heavy themes, like how the androids take care of so many jobs that the human unemployment rate is quite high, causing resentment. Humans openly discriminate against androids, delegating them to remain in the back of buses, restricting their rights, and openly treating them like slaves. The story is unabashed in the way it portrays these ideas that aren't typically shown in video games, taking risks that ultimately pay off in the long-run.
Pro The types of story situations you find yourself in are unprecedented
There's both quantity and quality with the branching paths in Detroit: Become Human. Connor, Kara, and Markus all experience some pretty remarkable events, leading them to grow as characters in satisfying ways according to your choices.
Connor can go down a truly intriguing path that puts him at odds with his programming, trapping him in some harrowing predicaments that test his loyalties. Kara can go on a real adventure with her friends and loved ones, leaving her with nothing as she tries to make things work despite the odds against her. Markus has the freedom to lead either a peaceful protest or a violent revolution against the humans, at the cost of losing relationships, and possibly himself in the process. The places and emotions you can lead your characters to are surprising and unforgettable.
Pro Fast-paced, action-packed combat
The combat in NieR: Automata is fantastic. It has a hack-and-slash feel to it, with an emphasis on agility and showy acrobatics. With the fluid and responsive controls, you can switch seamlessly from using swift attacks with your weapon to devastatingly strong attacks as you combo them together. You also use customizable ranged missile attacks from your personal robot pod, such as powerful laser beams or a giant hammer attack. It can be difficult to win battles sometimes, especially on the harder gameplay settings, but it's worthwhile to keep at it and watch yourself progress and improve.
Pro Unique storytelling with a real emotional impact
NieR: Automata's outlook on storytelling is incredibly special. To get the full experience, you have to run multiple playthroughs of the game, each of which offers a new experience and perspective. Your world view of the story events and characters expands drastically as you complete each playthrough, playing on your expectations to help you develop a deeper emotional bond with the protagonists and become invested in their plight.
Things take a real turn on your third playthrough, putting you on an emotional roller coaster all the way to the true ending. The plot twists and knocks on the fourth wall elevate the story to a truly unique place. Getting all the way to the very end can be a religious experience from how much heart and meaning you discover in the symbolism.
Pro It's got a hauntingly beautiful environment
NieR: Automata is set in a post-apocalyptic landscape after Earth has been overrun by hostile machines, and the artists really nailed what that would feel like. Abandoned and overgrown cities litter the landscape along with old refineries, graveyards, and eerie forests. When you add the beautiful soundtrack to the experience, it fills you with a bittersweet mix of loneliness and hope.
Pro Varied genre-spanning gameplay elements
NieR: Automata has different types of gameplay to keep things interesting. From the very start, you're on an on-rails bullet hell section, and then you switch over to the more traditional action RPG style of fast-paced combat. Things change up again not long after with some side-scrolling platforming from a 2D view. Later on in the story, there's a hacking mini-game where you navigate a tiny ship through a short puzzle, with the music changing to a charming retro sound to fit the theme and mood. This is a game that doesn't stay boxed in a single genre.
Pro An incredible amount of content
Outside of the main story, there's plenty of optional content to dive into. The side quests are the best way to get to know the characters and lore of the world, with some of them giving clever and subtle foreshadowing of the game's most critical events. There are also weapons to collect and upgrade, each of which offer nice little tidbits of lore after you get them to max level. And after reaching a certain point in the story, you get access to Chapter Select that lets you go back and replay whatever you want. You can easily spend 60+ hours exploring the world and still have much more to do.
Pro Gorgeous, ethereal soundtrack with amazing vocals
NieR: Automata's music is out of this world. It's so stunning and elegant in a way that nothing else can really live up to. The soundtrack manages to emotionalize the game through music, from the action-packed tracks with hard-hitting wind instruments and percussion, to the softer, somber songs that encapsulate the hauntingly beautiful environments and story moments you encounter. Vocals in the lore's indescribable language makes the music even more memorable, adding to the ethereal quality of the sound. This soundtrack is definitely one that you can go back to again and again without getting sick of it.
Cons
Con Not for players who want more involved gameplay
The gameplay in Detroit: Become Human boils down to exploring, making decisions, and following button prompts on the screen. This doesn't have any complicated, intricate systems that you might expect. It's more of an interactive movie that leans heavily on the experience rather than mechanics, which isn't for anyone. As long as you know what to expect before going in, the story might be enough to carry you through.
Con The real-world analogy of androids as an oppressed minority doesn't always work
It's a hard sell to portray advanced intelligent life as the equivalent of a powerless minority who faces institutionalized racism. The androids are subservient to humans initially because that's how they're programmed to behave; once they "wake up" and break free from that programming, it's just a matter of gathering allies and using their cybernetic superiority to achieve their goals. The story only spans a few months within the year 2038 as well, meaning it doesn't follow the same years-long arc of justice and civil rights as the minorities that the game draws inspiration from. It's an admirable portrayal nonetheless, despite the shortcomings and false equivalencies.
Con Some writing problems with over-the-top drama for shock value
At times, the writing dials it up to one hundred when it isn't always justified. This is mainly a problem with undeveloped characters who show up just to start drama, inevitably leading to situations that the player won't be able to sympathize with. The writers do this as a way to advance the plot, but it ends up feeling rushed and amateur, like it's done for the sake of shocking the audience. More time could have been dedicated to fleshing things out, making these plot twists more believable and impactful.
Con Limited open world
Even though NieR: Automata is technically an open world game, it doesn't always feel like it. It's more that there's a big open space in the center of the ruined city you explore, with branches that lead off to vastly different environments, like a desert, a village, and a few other places. These locations aren't that spacious, either, and it's a bit of a stretch to even imagine all of these places being so close together in the first place. It's not too much of an issue as long as you find the story and combat engaging enough.
Con Second playthrough can get repetitive
Once you get to Route B, your second playthrough, you may find that too much is the same. There are some big differences, such as the new way you get to see things play out, but a lot of it rehashes Route A, your first playthrough. There's a ton of hacking you have to do as well, which gets pretty boring after repeating it over and over again. But if you stick with it, Route C and onward are absolutely worth the time spent getting to that point.
Con Some boring fetch quests
The pacing gets messed up when you're forced to run certain fetch quests near the start of the game. This is somewhat forgivable after the fun and action-packed introductory level, but the quests themselves are still a drag to play through. Some of the side quests can also boil down to the same thing. Even though these quests give a lot of useful information about the world, they're not all that fulfilling, and you may dread having to repeat them when playing through the game again.
Con Buggy on PC
Some players complain about the game crashing, freezing, their save files mysteriously disappearing, and more. As of June 2018, over a year after the game's initial release, there is still no patch to fix these problems. Not everyone on PC will have these bugs, but it's still quite prevalent. If you continually run into issues, your best bet is to find a mod or play the console versions instead of waiting on an official patch that may never happen.