It’s honest, but we’d expect nothing less from the creator of NieR, which started out as a spinoff of Drakengard.
Japanese magazine 4Gamer wrote about an event that took place on November 16 at the G-Star conference in South Korea. This is where Saito Yusuke (producer) and Taro Yuko (creator of NieR) came into play. At the end of the conversation, Saito promised that NieR would continue as long as Taro was alive, but they couldn’t say anything specific because the conversation was mainly about NieR: Automata, which was released in 2017. He wanted the game’s distinctive character design to appeal to its target Japanese community , and the developers hoped it would be a multi-layered game beyond the local playground. Then there was also talk about the kind of competition that arises between the producer and the creative director, because they have complementary needs during development.
Saito has 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 ends up being a current-gen re-release of NieR: Automata (NieR: Replica has also been ported to the newer-gen PS3 …). Although when the original NieR was released around 2010, it wasn’t great, and even caused developer Cavia’s downfall.
NieR has been really quiet lately, aside from the recent release of NieR: Replicant, but the franchise has gained a lot of fans with the release of NieR: Automata (and not just in Japan), so Square Enix should do something new soon. In fact, there’s a Nintendo Switch port of Automata, as well as the story-packed free-to-play mobile game Re.[in]Cloves, but the public wants a console product after all this time.
Who knows what Saito and Taro might do together. Maybe another mobile game, and maybe some theatrics (because there is such a thing), but if the presentation is all about NieR: Automata, then maybe we can hope for that to stick. Square Enix isn’t that stupid (which is why this company also decided to use NFT, haha).
source: PCGamer
