The Complete, Unabridged Timeline of NieR

The entire Nier & Drakengard storyline condensed and recapped in chronological order. From the first game to the novella's, anime, and books, this storyline Yoko Taro has made is quite the confusing world if you're not paying attention.

0:00 Intro
DRAKENGARD 3
5:14 The Beginning
14:40 A Rain to End and a Flower to Begin
23:32 One, Two, Three, Four, & Five
28:42 Utahime Five
43:59 Rise of the Intoner Empire
46:02 Disciples
51:25 Drakengard 3 Story Summary

DRAKENGARD
1:10:44 Between Years 1000 to 1099
1:15:51 Manah
1:18:11 Caim, Furiae, & Inuart
1:24:24 Drakengard 1 Story Summary

NIER REPLICANT
1:40:00 6/12 Incident
1:50:14 Red Eye & Legion
1:54:04 The Stone Flower (Emil's Backstory)
1:59:20 Red Eye is slain
2:00:03 White Chlorination Syndrome
2:02:02 Project Gestalt
2:03:23 Devola & Popola
2:04:21 Grimoire Project
2:06:04 And Then There Were None (Weiss' Backstory)
2:11:16 Nier & Yonah (human)
2:12:48 Kaine (human)
2:16:12 The Boy, The Girl, and the Weapon
2:22:41 The Perfect Gestalt
2:29:00 Project Gestalt Commences
2:32:57 Nier & Yonah (replicant)
2:37:27 The Red and the Black
2:43:12 NieR Replicant Story Summary Pt.1
2:48:00 Kaine Backstory (replicant)
2:55:54 NieR Replicant Story Summary Pt.2
3:02:41 A Little Princess
3:05:14 NieR Replicant Story Summary Pt.3
3:18:37 5 Year Time Skip
3:40:19 The Little Mermaid
3:49:07 NieR Replicant Story Summary Pt.4
4:06:08 The Lost World

NIER AUTOMATA
4:10:51 A World without Humans
4:11:54 Devola & Popola's Fate
4:13:58 Aliens Invade Earth
4:15:46 Emil vs Aliens
4:18:24 The Fire of Prometheus
4:21:42 Kingdom of Night
4:26:29 Machines
4:32:56 Androids
4:35:18 Project YorHa
4:47:58 Commander White
4:52:08 YorHa Boys
4:57:44 A2 Backstory (Pearl Harbor Descent)
5:22:57 2E & 9S (Memory Cage & Memory Thorn)
5:31:58 NieR Automata Story Summary
6:22:43 NieR Reincarnation
6:23:33 Outro

Follow Me!

[EruptionFang]

It sucks that I have to reupload this video again!!! I know it's frustrating as a viewer to go through this but it's equally as frustrating as the creator to deal with copyright that takes the whole video. It's like a game of whack-a-mole with all these copyright issues, but I won't let my hard work go the waste!

[maikel]

Yoko Taro be like: I will add a crusial part of my story's lore on this promotional pamphlet that will be used only once

[Wolfhardt]

DrakenNier's timeline is essentially the embodiment of the phrase: "And then it got worse."

[Louicanthrope]

"so hey, can you explain Drakengard to me real quick ?"
"sure, glad you asked :"

[imthemetalguy]

You took roughly 2 decades of material from different sources and simplified it for cavemen like me. I can't thank you enough

[Akisses]

The detail about kid Nier having to sell himself in order to get money for Yonah's medicine for some reason really stunned me. It was genuinely jarring and made me actually feel bad for this video game character. Maybe because it's a story that could very possibly be happening in the real world even as of right now. I'm not sure, but it is information that genuinely had my jaw hit the floor in disbelief.

I think my favourite thing about this whole series is how God looked at humanity and went “Absolutely not.”

[dragonkyn]

I gotta hand it to you, compiling the timeline of arguably one of the most confusing RPG mythos ever created is not an easy feat to accomplish. The amount of time it took for you to make this must've been exhausting, so congratulations on your hard work! 6 hours of lore is exactly what I needed to watch for this week with work being absolute hell.

[shietiero]

"Hey Nier, if you kill the Shadow Lord you and everyone else in the world will contract the black scrawl and die horribly." There, I created another timeline.

[smileandnodd]

Emil is the last existing essence of humanity in the Nier world. He is the only hope.

[feffermickel]

The machines having the same shape, design, and consistent head of Emil is something I never noticed - what an incredible piece of visual storytelling. Really tugs at my heart that all machines could have been based off of him.

[tekkamanspade]

Just had a lightbulb lore moment.

In Drakengard 2, Legna mentioned an ancient war between the dragons and God/the watchers, and that the dragons were the natural enemy of the Watchers and things associated with them, i.e. the Flower.

This is the the same war that occured between humanity and the aliens in Nier's backstory. Cathedral City was the headquarters of the Human war effort, and these humans created the dragons to specifically combat the aliens, with the Flower being one of their weapons.

The aliens are described as being plant-like. Maybe the aliens were just another form of the Watchers sent by God to destroy mankind, and their weapon was the flower. Humanity, in Cathedral city, creates the dragons to defeat the flower, and they warred with the flower/Watchers for centuries until the event that sent Cathedral City to Drakengard's world in 856.
The humans were advanced and knew about the multiple timelines, which is why they made Accord. After they captured the Flower, they probably tried to uses some technomagic to attempt to send it through time to oblivion, but screwed up and sent the city, the dragons, and the flower to 856 AD in another dimension.

[glaringice]

This story is ALOT darker than I had orginally knew and now it makes a lot more sense but it's still equally confusing and interesting and I enjoy this alot, Thank You

[Tiny_TheFellOmen]

Crazy how All thats left oh humanity is a server on the moon and an immortal replicant Emil who's lost his memories.

[tirabee]

I have studied the lore and timeline of this universe so much, and I still got way too excited to see a video over 6 hours long about it. Thank you for doing this! My favorite rabbit hole to keep diving into.

[WardofSquid]

As quirky as Yoko Taro is, it is absolutely inspiring how he's been able to *physically manifest these masterpieces* . I, too, want to share my ideas with the world like him.

[Devolas_Footstool]

The sheer dedication Yoko Taro had to keep pushing these games out despite all the odds and Square Enix is something truly worthy of admiration

[altaiir]

I think draken/Nier is the only series that will make me watch a whole 6hr long video from start to finish. Excellent work! I have been enlightened

[Christian-grgu]

I personally like to think A2 just left Pascal alone (which is something you can do). Robots always fail and never learn from their mistakes because they never GET to learn. Pascal has to learn from this to grow.

[armblaster]

After having played Nier Replicant and getting lost down the rabbit hole of the Wiki, I commend you for the titanic effort to gather so many sources into a coherent timeline! Simply outstanding! Thank you!