NieR: Automata - Enemies
The machine lifeforms that hold Earth, grouped the way the game's model families work: stubbies, bipeds, flyers, spheres, quadrupeds and the colossal boss frames. Every family has a small, medium and large tier, and the larger tiers add armour, gattling arms or energy attacks rather than new behavio...
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of 12 entries
· updated 2026-09-15
| Name | Type | Description | Threat | Abilities |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small Stubby | Machine Lifeform (Small) | The baseline machine: a short cylinder with stubby arms, a glowing eye and no weapon beyond a weak punch or a rusty blade. | Low | Swarm melee attacks Rusty blade swing Self-destruct in groups |
| Small Biped | Machine Lifeform (Small) | A two-legged machine with a blade arm and a small gun arm, the most common mobile enemy in the city and desert. | Low | Blade swipe combos Short-range gunfire Leaping lunge |
| Medium Biped | Machine Lifeform (Medium) | A taller biped with heavier armour and a shield arm, used as a squad anchor in later areas. | Medium | Shield block Arm-mounted cannon Ground slam with shockwave |
| Goliath Biped | Machine Lifeform (Large) | A building-sized biped that anchors machine nests and appears as a mini-boss in open areas. | High | Wide laser sweep Missile volleys Stomp shockwaves Exposed core weak point |
| Small Flyer | Machine Lifeform (Small, Air) | A floating machine that hovers in loose groups and fires single shots. | Low | Hovering repositioning Single-shot energy fire Kamikaze dive |
| Medium Flyer | Machine Lifeform (Medium, Air) | A larger airborne machine with a ring of gun pods, fought in the flooded city and during flight sections. | Medium | Sustained gun pod fire Altitude keeping Ring laser burst |
| Goliath Flyer | Machine Lifeform (Large, Air) | An airborne capital-machine that shows up in flight unit sections and as an area boss. | High | Screen-filling barrage patterns Armoured hull with weak points Flight section boss phases |
| Small Sphere | Machine Lifeform (Small) | A hovering orb that rolls, rams and self-destructs. | Low | Rolling charge Self-destruct blast Orbital hover |
| Medium Quadruped | Machine Lifeform (Medium) | A four-legged machine built on animal lines, fast and prone to circling behind the player. | Medium | Circling pounce Bite and trample combos Pack flanking |
| Engels | Colossal Machine (Boss) | The skyscraper-scale machine that attacks the city in the prologue and recurs later in the story. | Boss | Arm cannon beam Missile salvo Crushing crawl and slam Multiple core weak points |
| Hephaestus | Machine Network Core (Boss) | The machine intelligence at the centre of the network and the final antagonist of the machine side of the story. | Boss | Data-space arena control Projectile wall patterns Machine network summons |
| Machine Core | Hackable Target | The glowing core inside every machine, exposed when 9S hacks a target or when a large machine's armour breaks. | Varies | Hacking minigame end target Instant kill when destroyed Defended by network turrets during intrusion |
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