NieR: Automata — Puppets Under a Blindfold
Why do YoRHa combat androids wear black visors over their eyes, while Scanner unit 9S is forbidden from fighting alongside the same partner for too long? Because in this war, the most dangerous thing you can do is look too closely at the truth.
■ I. The Conspiracy of the Bunker
NieR: Automata is the ultimate realization of the "unseen observer" theme—and its beige-and-charcoal Operating System menu is one of the most iconic interfaces in gaming history. When you begin Route A as 2B, the story presents a noble proxy war: humanity fled to the Moon, and androids descend to Earth to destroy alien machine lifeforms.
Yet as you replay those events through the eyes of 9S in Route B and enter Route C, every certainty collapses. Hacking the Bunker's server reveals that humanity went extinct millennia ago. YoRHa androids are built from the very machine cores they hunt, and 2B is secretly 2E—ordered by Command to watch 9S and execute him every time his curiosity uncovers the truth.
■ POD 042 // PROPOSAL TO UNIT 2B "Everything that lives is designed to end. We are perpetually trapped in a never-ending spiral of life and death. Is this a curse? Or some kind of punishment?"
■ II. Fighting the Credits in Ending E
Even the player's HUD is a physical surveillance device: sound volume, minimaps, health bars, and the OS itself exist as Plug-in Chips inside 2B's spine. When Pods 042 and 153 rebel against the project's automated deletion in Ending E, you literally shoot through the developers' names in the end credits—shielded by the sacrificed save files of real players across the world who watched over your struggle.
Triggering a last-second evade slows down the entire world for several seconds while every sword slash restores a percentage of your HP—turning 2B and A2 into unstoppable whirlwinds.