Franchise file / Takamasa Shiba, Takuya Iwasaki, Yoko Taro
Drakengard
Dragons, despair and odd endings
Cavia's 2003 PS2 dragon-riding action game marked Yoko Taro's debut, and its bleak world spawned sequels and the Nier spin-offs, which grew out of the last of its five endings.
- 2003
- First game
- 2
- Series
- Takamasa Shiba, Takuya Iwasaki, Yoko Taro
- Creator
One world. Many eras.
Choose your chapter
Drakengard. Cavia's 2003 original mixed ground battles with dragon combat and a bleak story told through multiple endings. Drakengard 2 followed in 2005, and Access Games made Drakengard 3 in 2013.
Start with DrakengardYour next late night
The essentials
Chapters
Series (2)
Dark fantasy on dragonbackDrakengardSquare Enix's bleak action RPG series began at Cavia in 2003, pairing dragon flight with ground battles and stories that refuse to end well.NieRAction RPG series by Yoko Taro, spun out of the Drakengard line. NieR arrived in 2010, and NieR: Automata followed in 2017 with a Replicant remake in 2021.
A legacy worth revisiting
An ending that outgrew its game.
Drakengard hid its strangest idea in its final ending, and Nier grew out of it in 2010. PlatinumGames took that line to Automata in 2017. Across both names, expect bleak stories and endings that rewrite what came before.
- 2003 to 2013
- Drakengard
- 2010 to 2021
- Nier
Scenes that stay with you
Inside the world
Select a frame to expand it.
