Philip Rebohle, DXVK’s founding developer, stated in an interview that he started the project “to get one specific game to work”. Later, he explained in a forum post that he was a bit of a Nier fanboy, and that it was a relatively simple game to use as a test subject for DXVK.
Rebohle was later contacted and hired by Valve. Wine already had a D3D11 compatibility layer, but it wasn’t nearly as far ahead as DXVK at the time. It’s fair to say that Linux gaming wouldn’t exist in its current form if not for one guy’s appreciation for Nier Automata. Rebohle still works at Valve, currently conributing to VKD3D-Proton.
The soundtrack is similarly fucking amazing, honestly. Top tier world-building with an orchestral score that has a made-up language meant to mimic what a future language that is a mashup of all human languages might be like. Valid thing to just be here for.