NieR:Orchestra Concert Key Art

If you have plans to attend NieR:Orchestra Concert 12024 [ the end of data ], be aware that Zion discusses some of the fun and surprises of the event. For those who aren't able to go, though, we thought you'd like to know how it turned out after he was lucky enough to be in LA on Saturday for opening night...

I’ve attended more than my fair share of gaming-themed symphonies and shows over the years: The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddess, Distant Worlds: Final Fantasy and even Anamanaguchi shredding it up to the Scott Pilgrim: The Game soundtrack made some incredible memories. Although nothing prepared me for the way the NieR:Orchestra Concert 12024 [ the end of data ] would pay tribute to the series while creating something new and intimate for the audience. This concert, which is touring the world from now until March 2024, truly was a spectacular event for fans in the know, and a delightful celebration of NieR as a whole.

As you can expect, the roughly two-and-a-half-hour show took us through a wide range of songs from NieR:Automata and NieR:Replicant on the first tour date — I won’t spill which tunes those were as I’d hate to spoil them for anyone who's got tickets for future dates. But for some of the more fan-favorite tracks, the familiar and fantastic Emi Evans and J'Nique Nicole took the stage. Their voices make for such a beautiful blend and seeing them perform live in person is something I’ll never forget.

What made this show so special though was the game director, Yoko Taro’s innate ability to make everything a cryptic puzzle for fans to question and play around with. The event website made mention of a special “recorded reading” that would play during the show from the English voice cast of Automata’s main characters, 2B (Kira Buckland) and 9S (Kyle McCarley.)

This turned out to be a completely unique and never-before-released story that took place after the events of Automata — a sort of epilogue, if you will. These audio diaries were shared in between the songs throughout the night. While there were no fancy cutscenes or visuals to accompany these readings (only written dialogue would appear on screen here), the auditorium fell completely still in these moments, captivated by the narrative.

Without going too into it, the story followed 2B and 9S, who were faced with the fact that she had somehow been infected with a virus and was in danger of her Black Box breaking down. It gave us another more personal look into their lives and ended with an unexpected twist; a twist that, in typical Taro-san fashion, may have teased a new project in the NieR: Automata series. Chills crawled all over my body as a visual timeline shared all of the accomplishments and releases of the NieR series over the years. Ending in 2024, where the screen read, 'Our journey will continue. Until we meet again.' (Shoutout to James Galizio, who was sitting next to us at the show and jotted this down!)

Then, not only did Yoko Taro take the stage at the end of the show along with composer Keiichi Okabe, Taro-san cheekily got our hearts racing again when he said that he had a surprise for everyone. A surprise that ended up being a silly moment where he granted everyone the privilege of taking a photo of him, while he stayed on stage and we stayed in our seats (see below.) Everyone absolutely ate it up and the crowd erupted with laughter.

As a huge appreciator of Automata and the story it told, I was glued to my seat the entire time. Except for the intermission, where I briskly bolted to the merch booth to find nearly everything had sold out. I bought one of the last adult small tee shirts they had left, which I’m likely going to cut up and adhere to a jean jacket, and as I was heading back into the theater I heard the merch team announce that everything had sold out completely. No records, no CDs left, no keychains, no plushies, no posters. NieR fans showed up and cleared out the show! As someone who ran the merch booth for my own band, I couldn’t help but feel happy for the team running the booth as they must have been impressed and surprised by the success. Hopefully everyone got what they wanted, though!

One area I did feel the show was lacking was the visuals that were shown on screens in the theater. While I did appreciate they didn’t go hard into spoiler territory (although it could probably be taken as a given that everyone in attendance had played the games to completion), they repeated a lot of fire and snow overlay effects that felt a bit generic. However, they did find a fun way to utilize the bullet hell aspect of NieR: Automata and that got a big smile out of me.

I feel like there must have been so many secrets, puzzles to crack, and Easter eggs that went right over my head! I did catch what I suspected was a nod to the hidden church secret that was later discovered to be a fan mod, and after chatting with friends after the show we all had that light bulb moment when it happened.

The NieR series truly is a gift that keeps on giving. After having a pretty rough launch on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in the West back in the day, it’s incredible to see how far this series has come and to see the way the developers are celebrating it. It feels good to reflect on the fact 7,000 fans sold out an entire theater in downtown LA, all to celebrate a series of games that launched as far back as 14 years ago. Oh hey, that makes next year the 15th anniversary, and that’d be a pretty solid timeframe to release something new, right? Those seven million sales of NieR: Automata likely mean something to Square Enix, right?

We'd like to extend a big thanks to Square Enix for supplying two tickets to see the concert in Los Angeles — we will never forget it.

The NieR:Orchestra Concert world tour continues in Dallas on Wednesday and Chicago on Saturday, before crossing the border to Vancouver the following Wednesday and then heading to Europe, then two nights in Bangkok, and returning to the States at the end of March. Various dates are already sold out, but check nierconcert.com for ticket info.