NieR mouse pads for the desk

These NieR mouse pads and desk mats take their look from Yoko Taro's strange, sad action RPGs, above all NieR: Automata. Each one is a 3 mm neoprene pad with a fabric top and a non-slip base, its edges stitched against fraying and its design printed in high resolution right to the border. There are eight desk sizes in all, from an 11.8″ × 15.7″ (30 × 40 cm) pad that holds only the mouse to a 23.6″ × 47.2″ (60 × 120 cm) mat that covers the desk, and the product page of each design shows which of them it comes in. Nothing is printed until you order it.

Automata came out in 2017, built by PlatinumGames for Square Enix, and reached PC through Steam that March. It looks restrained on purpose: androids in black, a world bleached gray and green, menus in soft beige. That restraint is exactly what makes it easy to live with under a keyboard every day.

Why NieR suits a working desk

Most game art fights for attention. NieR's doesn't. Its artists kept the palette narrow, mostly black, white, warm gray and moss, and they let empty space do a lot of the work. On a desk that means a NieR mat can sit under a work laptop, a drawing tablet or a study notebook without turning the setup into a shrine. People who know the game see 2B or a Pod; everyone else sees a calm, slightly melancholy picture.

It also photographs well. A monochrome mat gives keycaps, cables and a monitor a clean base, which helps if you post your setup online or spend the afternoon on video calls.

The menu screen palette

Open Automata's menus and the screen turns a pale khaki with dark brown text and thin ruled lines, like a technical manual printed on old paper. People recognize that interface from a single screenshot, and it translates directly to a desk. A design built on that sand-and-umber scheme suits an oak or walnut desktop, cream or beige keycaps and warm-white bulbs far better than the usual black-and-neon gaming look.

The same palette hides wear well. Tan shows less dust than black and less skin oil than white, which matters on the strip of pad your wrist rests on all day.

2B, 9S and A2 on a long mat

The three YoRHa androids are tall, upright figures, and on a wide desk mat their placement decides whether you see them at all. The keyboard covers the middle third of an XL mat and a right-handed mouse covers most of the right end, so a standing figure belongs on the far left, where nothing heavier than a coffee mug ever sits. Left-handed players can simply flip that logic.

2B, in her black dress and blindfold with her white sword, is the natural lead. 9S, the scanner model with silver hair, pairs with her in a two-figure composition that leaves the center open for the keyboard. A2, with her long pale hair and ragged clothes, suits a solo design with more motion in it, since she fights alone for much of the story.

Pods beside the mouse

Pod 042 and Pod 153 float at the shoulders of 2B and 9S for the whole game, firing on command and commenting dryly on everything. On the small 11.8″ × 15.7″ (30 × 40 cm) pad, a single Pod in the top corner plays the same role: a little companion hovering just past your mouse hand. Their boxy shape and pale gray finish stay readable at that size, and they are an easy pick for a work desk where a full character would feel like too much.

Black and white setups

If your desk is already black and white, NieR is one of the few game series that can join it without adding color. The YoRHa uniforms are black with white trim, the orbital Bunker is white with black detailing, and the emblem works as a pure graphic. Pair a black YoRHa design with a white keyboard and the contrast does the decorating; reverse it, with a white Bunker scene under black peripherals, and the desk starts to look like a lab.

Keep the lighting plain. Cool white, or no RGB at all, suits this palette. If you want a single accent, a soft warm lamp beside the monitor is enough to make the grays feel like dusk in the ruins.

Hacking as 9S

When you play as 9S, fights often turn into hacking: the screen drops into an abstract space of simple geometric shapes, and you steer a tiny ship through a short shooting game to break into a machine. It is the most graphic, least figurative part of NieR, which makes it good material for a minimalist pad. Clean shapes on a flat ground, with the little ship somewhere near the top edge, look like abstract art to a visitor and like a puzzle you have cleared a hundred times to anyone who played.

Plug-in chips and the HUD

Automata turns its own interface into equipment. The health gauge, the minimap and the damage numbers are plug-in chips you can remove to free storage, and pulling out the OS chip ends the game on the spot. That idea, an android's system laid bare, gives a designer something unusual to work with: chip outlines, storage gauges and status readouts drawn in thin lines. Those motifs suit a programmer's or an engineer's desk, and they work on any size, because small elements can repeat as a pattern.

Flight units on a long strip

Some of Automata's set pieces switch genre entirely. 2B and 9S climb into flight units, slim white mechs, and the game becomes a side-scrolling shooter across the sky. That horizontal motion is a good match for the long, narrow sizes. On an M, 11.8″ × 27.6″ (30 × 70 cm), a flight unit at one end and a trail of clouds running toward the other turns the strip under a tenkeyless keyboard into a scene with direction, rather than a picture you only see the edges of.

The City Ruins and plants on the desk

Most of Automata takes place in a city that nature has taken back: towers split by trees, roads under moss, light falling through broken concrete. That green-and-gray palette is a natural partner for a desk with plants on it. A pothos trailing from a shelf, a small cactus by the monitor and a City Ruins mat underneath make a setup that looks deliberate rather than themed.

Other areas give other moods. The Desert is pale gold and suits a light wood desk. The Amusement Park, with its fireworks and painted rides, is the one truly colorful place in the game, and suits a playful setup with pastel keycaps. The Copied City, a white replica of a human town, is almost colorless and pairs with an all-white desk.

Round heads and small machines

The machine lifeforms you fight, and sometimes befriend, are drawn as simple shapes: round heads, stubby limbs, two glowing eyes. That simplicity is what makes them work small. A single machine sitting in the top corner of a mouse pad, or a row of them walking along the far edge of a desk mat above the keyboard, keeps a sense of humor in the design that the black-clad androids don't have. It is a good route for someone who wants NieR on the desk without a character portrait.

NieR Replicant and the older palette

The 2021 update of the first game, NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139…, brought back Nier, his sister Yonah, the foul-mouthed swordswoman Kainé, the shy Emil and the talking book Grimoire Weiss. Its world is warmer than Automata's, with sandstone villages, sunlit fields and a seaside town, and its symbol, the pale Lunar Tear flower, is gentler than anything YoRHa wears. A Replicant-leaning design suits someone who wants the series' mood with less black in it, and a single Lunar Tear near the top of a small pad is one of the quietest game designs you can put on a desk.

Playing Automata at a desk

On PC, Automata supports keyboard and mouse, but it was built around a controller, and plenty of players switch between the two. The action shifts constantly, from third-person sword fights to side-scrolling stretches to bullet-filled shooting sections, and a mat helps with all of it. With a controller, an XL, 15.7″ × 35.4″ (40 × 90 cm), gives it a soft place to rest beside the keyboard between fights. With a mouse, the fabric top keeps camera turns smooth, and the non-slip base holds the surface still when a dodge-heavy boss has you hammering keys.

Automata asks you to play through more than once to see the whole story, so the hours add up. Cushioned neoprene under the wrists is a small comfort across that many sessions.

Okabe's music and a quiet room

Keiichi Okabe's soundtrack, with voices singing in invented languages over piano and strings, is the kind of music people put on while they write, code or revise. A NieR pad fits that use of the desk: a laptop, a notebook, headphones, and a gray-and-green landscape underneath that never pulls your eyes off the page. Muted designs like this also suit shared spaces, such as a dorm desk or a home office that doubles as a guest room.

Sizes for a NieR desk

Each design's product page shows which of the eight sizes it comes in. Here is how they line up with NieR art.

Setup	Size	Good for
Mouse only	S, 11.8″ × 15.7″ (30 × 40 cm)	A Pod or the YoRHa emblem in one corner
Laptop or sketchbook	TCG Mat, 14″ × 24″ (35.5 × 61 cm)	A Lunar Tear or one figure beside the screen
Tenkeyless keyboard	M, 11.8″ × 27.6″ (30 × 70 cm)	A flight unit crossing a strip of sky
Keyboard and mouse	XL, 15.7″ × 35.4″ (40 × 90 cm)	2B at the far end with ruins behind her
Deep desk	XXL, 23.6″ × 35.4″ (60 × 90 cm)	A full scene with open sky above the keys
Desk-wide	4XL, 23.6″ × 47.2″ (60 × 120 cm)	The overgrown city from one end to the other

For desks that are wide but shallow, the L, 11.8″ × 31.5″ (30 × 80 cm), stretches a strip of ruins a little further than the M, and the 3XL, 19.7″ × 39.4″ (50 × 100 cm), sits between the XL and the full 4XL.

Gifts without spoilers

NieR stories turn on their twists, so a gift shouldn't give one away. Opening-hours imagery is safe: 2B and 9S together, a Pod, the YoRHa emblem or the City Ruins. Leave anything that hints at later chapters for people who have seen the credits several times, and if you can, find out which ending they reached first.

When you can't measure the desk, choose the XL; it takes a full keyboard and mouse almost anywhere and still leaves room for one figure at the edge. Each pad is printed and finished in 1–3 business days and then leaves Turkey for the US, where it typically arrives 2–5 business days later.

Keeping white and black clean

NieR designs sit at both ends of the scale, and each end shows something different. White Bunker scenes show skin oil where the wrist rests; black YoRHa designs show dust and lint. A damp cloth over the surface once a week handles both. When the pad needs more, wash it by hand in lukewarm water with a drop of mild soap, rinse until the water runs clear, roll it in a towel to press the water out and leave it lying flat to dry. The washing machine, the tumble dryer and the iron are all off the table, and the print keeps its fine gray gradients.

A note on names

NieR, NieR: Automata, NieR Replicant, YoRHa and the names of characters and places from the games appear here only to describe what our designs are inspired by. Padrift is not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by Square Enix or PlatinumGames.