English
简体中文
PlatinumGames, 2017
Windows, PS4 和 Xbox One
PlatinumGames, 2017
Windows, PS4 and Xbox One
《尼尔：机械纪元》（NieR: Automata）可以说打破了我对电子游戏的想象。在我通关了游戏之后，我是说在我探索完它的最终结局和所有秘密之后，我对电子游戏就有了一种“曾经沧海难为水，除却巫山不是云”的空虚感。我看了看我放电子游戏的架子，心里暗想：或许没有一个游戏可以和它相比肩了。
《尼尔：机械纪元》是一款动作角色扮演游戏（Action - RPG）。但它也属于“哲学游戏”的范畴。也就是说，它并不是关于哲学的游戏，也没有向玩家介绍哲学，而是通过游戏的玩法结构，而非故事情节，来让玩家体验哲学概念。当然，由于这是个日本游戏，所以用来传递这些概念的载体是一个用太刀连击砍机器人的，衣着暴露的女性人造人（android）。
要真正理解这个概念的来源和这个奇怪的组合，我们需要回到 90 年代中期的日本，来看看一部叫《新世纪福音战士》（Neon Genesis Evangelion）的动画。《新世纪福音战士》在充满未来感的机器人大战怪兽中融合了中二的哲学和宗教术语。该剧可以说影响了日本国内的流行文化，使其发展方向在未来的几年内发生了深远的变化，并激发了一代创作者在游戏世界和故事情节中采用同样的哲学气息和宗教氛围。
Nier: Automata broke video games for me. After I finished it — after I really finished it, exploring the final ending and its secrets — I felt that I was done with games. I looked over the shelves holding my video game collection and felt nothing else could come close.
Nier: Automata is an Action-RPG. But it also exists within the subset of “games as philosophy.” That is, not necessarily a game about philosophy, or a game teaching or introducing you to philosophy, but a game that tries to get the player to experience philosophical concepts through its gameplay structure rather than its narrative. Of course, it is a Japanese game, so the delivery vehicle for these concepts is a story about a scantily clad female android destroying killer robots with katana combos.
To truly understand the lineage of this concept and weird mashup, we need to go back to Japan in the mid-'90s and the launch of the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. Evangelion combined futuristic mecha fighting giant kaiju with highfalutin philosophical and religious language. The show impacted Japanese pop culture in a way that would bend its trajectory for years to come, inspiring a generation of game creators to similarly co-opt philosophical and religious trappings into their game worlds and narratives.
《尼尔：机械纪元》取得了令人惊喜的成功。它的销量突破六百万份，并催生了数种衍生产品，比如小说、漫画、手办、舞台剧和一些收录标志性音乐重新编曲和现场版的 CD。
Nier: Automata was a surprise hit, selling over six million units and spawning several side-products such as novels, manga, figures, stage plays and several CDs with rearrangements and live renditions of its iconic music.
《尼尔：机械纪元》有 26 种不同的结局。有些需要多周目才能达成，另一些则仅仅需要做出与游戏剧情相背离的决定。
Nier: Automata has 26 different endings. Some require multiple playthroughts to reach, while others are achieved by simple decisions that diverge from the game’s story.
最初，如 1998 年发售的《异度装甲》（Xenogears）和 2002 年发售的《异度传说》（Xenosaga）等游戏大多只是在文本上讨论了这些概念，仍然保持了传统的玩法和游戏设计。不过最近一些游戏（例如初版《尼尔》和后来的《女神异闻录》（Persona）系列作品）开始尝试将哲学元素融入到游戏设计中。这种从动漫开始，并发展到游戏中的哲学元素是重中之重。
哲学家 Alan Watts[1] 用一种奇特的语言技巧，构筑了西方和东方宗教理念的桥梁。他先从“摩耶”[2] 这个词开始，印度教用“摩耶”一词表示世界本质上是虚幻的，之后指出“虚幻”（illusion）一词来源于拉丁语 ludens，意为“游戏”。根据这种“现实/生活/存在即是一场游戏”的观点，诸如《尼尔：机械纪元》等游戏的出现就变得有意义了起来。
你可以从书中了解哲学，在你心中的剧台上尽情设想这些概念，或者观看一部人物体现哲学道理的电影，但你在做这些事的时候仍然是旁观者。游戏的独特之处在于模拟真实生活，让你和一个世界、一种现实进行互动。游戏世界并不真正属于你，但除了致幻物质之外，没有哪种方式能让你与它们更加接近。
在第一印象里，《尼尔：机械纪元》是一个关于两个人造人，2B 和 9S，在末世与机械生物战斗保护人类的故事。当然，游戏全盘采用了类似《新世纪福音战士》和《异度传说》的模式，每次都会向你抛出宗教和哲学上的呓语。但这些都只是浮于美学层面的东西，旨在引导你的思考进入哲学框架当中。真正的内容是深刻且多层的，并且会在你游玩多周目的时候显露出来。
Initially, games like Xenogears (1998) and Xenosaga (2002) mostly explored such concepts verbally and kept to more traditional gameplay and structure. More recent games (like the original Nier or later entries in the Persona series) started dipping their toes into weaving philosophy into game design. This transition from philosophically charged anime to game is key.
The philosopher Alan Watts uses a curious language trick to help bridge the concepts of eastern and western religions. He starts with the word “Maya,” used by eastern religions to represent the illusory nature of the world; he translates it roughly as “illusion,” and then points out that illusion has roots in the Latin “ludens” meaning “play.” Through this vision of “reality/life/existence as play,” the emergence of games like Nier: Automata starts to make sense.
You can read about philosophy in a book and envision the concepts in the theatre of your mind, or you can watch a movie about characters embodying philosophical principles, but you are still a spectator. Games are unique in the way that they mimic real life. They let you interact with a world and reality that is not your own but feels closer to it than anything you can experience without the use of hallucinogenic substances.
At first glance, Nier: Automata is a game about two androids, 2B and 9S, fighting robots in a post-apocalyptic world to protect mankind. Of course, the game does the whole Evangelion/Xenosaga thing of dropping religious and philosophical babble on you at every turn, but that's little more than an aesthetic layer, something meant to prime you into the philosophical frame of mind. The real meat is many layers deep and exposes itself on repeat playthroughs.
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1 译者注：英国哲学家，作家，演说家，早年受基督教教育，但对东方艺术产生了兴趣。在取得神学博士学位后定居美国，一生向西方宣传佛教、道教、印度教等东方宗教思想。代表作有《禅之道》（1957）等。
2 译者注：माया，Maya，梵语，意为“幻”。“一切有为法，如梦幻泡影，如露亦如电，应作如是观。”
《电脑 RPG 游戏史（The CRPG Book Project）》原书信息
英文原版主编：Felipe Pepe
原项目网址：https://crpgbook.wordpress.com/
授权协议：知识共享 署名-非商业性使用 4.0 国际许可协议 (CC BY-NC 4.0)
这本书历时四年，由 119 名志愿者共同完成。
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