"order" to play nier games in

[Heavenly Pete]

im interested in getting into the nier games, and i've heard that you dont need to play any of the previous games to enjoy automata, but i've also heard that there are snippets of the story you might miss out on if you havent. with that in mind, what "order" should i play the nier/drakenguard games to get the most out of the story?

[Furystrikez]

Drakengard 3 leads to Drakengard 1 which leads to Nier and then Automata.
Drakengard 2 is in a separate timeline.

[scy]

Keep in mind that Drakengard 3 and Nier are PS 3 games that never made it to the PC (yet) and are not available an PS Now (if you have a PS 4).

[lPaladinl]

If you want the full story for NieR alone, really only Drakengard 1 is connected whatsoever. And that game is easily the worst game in the series and not easy for people to stomach playing through because of how janky and difficult it is.

Drakengard 3 is a prequel to Drakengard 1, but it doesn't really fill you in on anything important to NieR. It doesn't even fully explain the source of the problem that results in Drakengard 1, just the events that happened prior to it.

Drakengard 2 is just more of the same of Drakengard 1, a continuation of that universe, ignoring what happens in one of the endings to Drakengard 1. Basically business as usual and it's entirely cut off from the rest of the series.

You honestly only need to see one of the endings of Drakengard 1 (Ending D I think it is?) to know what starts NieR off. That's the only part of the plot relevant to NieR at all. And then NieR leads into Automata.

NieR: Gestalt/Replicant are the same identical game, save for Nier's character is a different age with a different voice actor. Gestalt is the only version that was ported to the west, and is arguably the better version, with an older Nier. In the west it's often just called Nier.

There's some novella you might want to look into as they fill in a lot more backstory than any of the games do, but they're hard to get ahold of and some material is in japanese only.

[Tambadabam]

Play the original Nier (ps3 or xbox 360), then if you want the whole backstory you can watch a let's play of drakengard 1 (i would highly discourage actually playing it, it's very unfun, but if you feel the need it's on ps2) Nier is a continuation of Drakengard's final ending, ending E.
Drakengard 3 is a prequel to Drakengard 1. It's alright, but not as good as Nier in my opinion.
Drakengard 2 is a waste of time and also Yoko Taro had nothing to do with it. Avoid.

[Unholy burden of Eternity]

for drakengard 3 and NIER, you should wait for a PC port since its rare to find a brand new PS3(unless you willing to pay $500 for a decade old but mint condition) console or if you're that desperate for the whole Drakengard/nier lore, there are a lot of youtube videos that people played and turn a whole video game into a movie video witch ain't the same experience as playing.

As for Drakengard 1, Just play on the PS2 emulator.