Shadow Gestalts

In the 2010 video game Nier, the Gestalts are the shadow-like beings that populate the post-apocalyptic Earth. They are the souls of humans, separated from their bodies following an apocalyptic magical pandemic. The Gestalts were intended to rejoin with their Replicant counterparts—artificial humans that gained sentience and their own souls. However, the Replicants came to see the Gestalts as monsters, dubbing them 'Shades', and the two sides entered into conflict. The Shadowlord, a powerful Gestalt key to the Replicant system, is later revealed to be the protagonist's own Gestalt, who sought out Yonah's Replicant form to save his own Gestalt sister/daughter, mirroring the protagonist's actions.