Nilin (Remember Me)
Amnesiac memory hunter fighting a memory-controlling corporation.
Nilin Cartier-Wells is the lead character in Remember Me, a 2013 action-adventure game. She is a freedom fighter with amnesia, recruited by a man named Edge to dismantle Memorize, the corporation that created the Sensen memory-altering technology. Her mission involves reclaiming her lost memories and exposing Memorize’s wrongdoings.
Quick Facts
- First
- Remember Me (2013)
- Creator
- Jean-Maxime Moris
- Designer
- Michel Koch
- Voice
- EN: Kezia Burrows; FR: Jessica Monceau
Facts from the source article.
Concept and development
Nilin was conceived by Remember Me's creative director Jean-Maxime Moris. He stated that making the protagonist a woman was not a marketing decision but something that felt right from the beginning, and that portraying a male character might have required making him gay, which would have presented its own problems. The team built the story to focus on emotion, intimacy, identity, and how technology intersects those, contrasting with traditional cyberpunk transhumanism; a female character felt like the other side of the coin. The creators gave Nilin a mixed ethnic origin to make her stand out, though this made her difficult to market because many publishers believed a mixed-race female protagonist would not sell as well as a stereotypical male one.
Appearances
In Remember Me, Nilin is the daughter of Charles and Scylla Cartier-Wells, the founders of Sensen technology. After a car crash injured and embittered her mother, her father designed the Sensen to help Nilin forget her part in the accident. Nilin becomes a memory hunter, able to enter and steal memories, and can remix them to create false memories that alter a person's outlook and actions. She joins the Errorists, an underground movement opposed to Sensen, and after manipulating a target into suicide, she is imprisoned in the Bastille and her memories erased. The unseen Errorist leader Edge breaks her out and guides her, and she follows his orders to recover her lost memories while doubting herself and fearing what she might have done. She eventually learns her origins and remixes her parents' memories to make them see the harm of the technology, allowing her entry to H3O, the Memorize central server. Edge confirms he and H3O are the same entity; H3O, a sentient being formed from the vast collection of painful memories stored by Sensen users, had created Edge to organize the Errorists and bring down Memorize, seeking its own destruction. Nilin destroys Edge/H3O, releasing the stored memories into the general population.
Critical reception
Nilin received mixed reviews from gaming sites. Edge Magazine called her a powerhouse of a protagonist, instantly likable and self-aware, a mix of strength and sensitivity, sarcasm and fire, external certainty and internal conflict, despite some cheesy lines. Game Informer's Ben Reeves described her as a capable warrior and memory hunter but said she failed to have much of a personality of her own. GameTrailers' Justin Speer noted she treats the world's insanity with unwavering seriousness. Polygon's Arthur Gies called her one of Remember Me's greatest strengths. GameSpot's Kevin VanOrd cited her as the most memorable part of the game, praising her skills and story. Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell called her a compelling lead with good heart and pathos despite rough writing. Kotaku's Evan Narcisse praised the absence of racial stereotypes in her character and that her quest was not driven by an ethnic-derived social situation.
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