Kainé

Lore & Background

Kainé is a Replicant, one of the soulless artificial humans that populate Earth following an apocalyptic magical pandemic. She was intended to be born female, but a fault in the Replicant production system causes her to be born intersex. Suffering discrimination from her home village the Aerie, she is cared for by her grandmother Kali, who treats her as a woman, encourages her to use feminine clothing, and influences her tendency to swear. When the two are attacked by the monstrous Shade Hook and Kali is killed, Kainé survives by being possessed by the disembodied Shade Tyrann. This causes further discrimination, and Kainé chooses to live only for revenge against Hook. Kainé ultimately kills Hook with help from the protagonist, who encourages her to help him search for a cure to the Black Scrawl appearing among the Replicants and infecting the young girl Yonah. She chooses to live as a loyal ally and 'sword' to the protagonist. She also interacts with his other companions, sharing a bickering relationship with the talking book Grimoire Weiss, and forming a sibling relationship with the young Emil who suffers isolation due to his petrification powers. She briefly sacrifices herself by allowing Emil to petrify her to seal away a powerful Shade when the Gestalt leader Shadowlord kidnaps Yonah. Five years later Emil releases her and she helps the group hunt down the Shadowlord. During one fight with Shades, the Aerie and its people are destroyed.

In Their Own Story

In the game's first two endings, Kainé helps the protagonist kill the Shadowlord and rescue Yonah before leaving them; the Shadowlord's death will eventually lead to the extinction of both Replicants and Gestalts in one timeline. Subsequent playthroughs, which begin following Kainé's release from the seal, show further backstory for characters including Kainé and the Gestalts. The final two endings are based around a choice after Kainé is overwhelmed by Tyrann and goes berserk following the Shadowlord's death; the protagonist can either kill her to end her suffering, or sacrifice his and Tyrann's existence to restore her normal form, leaving her and Yonah with no memories of him. In the 2021 expanded remaster Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139..., Kainé is a playable character in the new ending section based on the short story The Lost World. As the world grows worse following the Shadowlord's death, Kainé has recurring dreams of the protagonist. She restores the protagonist's human form after a confrontation with the plant-like Sleeping Beauty computer system.

Reader's Guide

Kainé was created by Yoko Taro, director and story writer of Nier, as an unconventional female-identifying lead. Korean illustrator D.K created her design, and writers Sawako Natori and Jun Eishima contributed to her backstory. Her design was updated by Akihiko Yoshida for the 2021 remaster of Nier. Across all spoken appearances, she is voiced by Laura Bailey in English and Atsuko Tanaka in Japanese. The choice whether to kill or save Kainé during the game's final endings was based around how much players would have come to like her. Nier short story writer Jun Eishima felt that each ending was better suited to different versions of the protagonist; the father would choose to kill Kainé, while the brother would sacrifice himself. The ending scenario included in Grimoire Nier was initially an alternate proposal if the fourth ending, which involved players' save data being deleted, was not approved. The Grimoire Nier scenario was included in the remaster due to the game's larger budget, and a request from producer Yosuke Saito for more fan service.

Did You Know?

• Kainé was created by Yoko Taro in response to a female staff member's vague wish for a 'male heroine'.
• Yoko Taro did not emphasise Kainé's intersexuality in marketing, and was surprised it formed part of the game's marketing.
• In the Japanese version, Kainé's swearing was censored out using bleeps as a joke and reference to censorship issues with the original Drakengard.
• Kainé was planned to feature in a collaboration with the mobile game SINoALICE but was not included due to budgetary limits relating to her voice actress.
• For the 2021 remaster, Kainé was redesigned by Akihiko Yoshida because original illustrator D.K had moved back to Korea and was unable to work with the team.