It’s honest, but we couldn’t have expected anything less from the creator of NieR, which started as a Drakengard spinoff.
A Japanese publication, 4Gamer, wrote about an event that took place on November 16 at the G-Star conference in South Korea. This is where Saito Yosuke (the producer) and Taro Yoko (creator of NieR) appeared. At the end of the conversation, Saito promised that NieR will continue as long as Taro lives, but they couldn’t say anything specific because the conversation was mainly about NieR: Automata, which was released in 2017. The game’s distinctive character design wanted to appeal to the Japanese target community, and the developers hoped that it could be a layered game outside of the home field. Then there was also the question of what kind of competition develops between a producer and the creative director, because they had complementary needs during development.
Saito hinted at an as-yet-unannounced collaboration between the two, and hopes to reveal more about it in 2024, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it all ended up being a current-gen NieR: Automata re-release (NieR: Replicant was also ported over to From the PS3 generation to the newer one…). Although when the original NieR was released around 2010, it was not outstanding, and even dragged the developer, Cavia, down with it.
NieR has been really quiet lately, aside from the modernized version of NieR: Replicant, but the franchise gained a lot of fans with the release of NieR: Automata (and not just in Japan), so Square Enix should be doing something new soon. In fact, there is the Nintendo Switch port of Automata, as well as the story-packed free-to-play mobile game Re[in]carnation, but the audience wants a console product after all this time.
Who knows what Saito and Taro might work together. Maybe another mobile game, maybe some theater performance (because there is such a thing), but if the presentation was about NieR: Automata, maybe we can hope for a continuation of this. Square Enix is not that stupid (that’s why this company also decided on NFT, lol).
Source: PCGamer
