Yoko Taro says he hid Nier Automata from Square Enix
The director describes building the RPG he wanted while keeping the publisher out of the room, and explains why the first Nier changed protagonists by region.
Nier: Automata exists because its director got left alone. Yoko Taro said he made the RPG he wanted to make and tried to stay hidden from Square Enix while doing it, in comments reported by GamesRadar+ about the game's production.
He also went back to the first Nier, which shipped in 2010 with an older protagonist on Xbox 360 and a boyish lead on PlayStation 3, both replaced by the older character in the West. That approach did not end in great sales, Yoko said at the time, so the studio stopped overthinking it.
Tags
- nier-automata
- playstation
- xbox
- pc
Sources
Where this story ran: one outlet on 26 September 2026. The summary above is written by GamersGuild; the links go to the original reports.
Games in this post
NieR: Automata
NieR: Automata follows the androids 2B, 9S and A2 through a war against machine lifeforms, and it expects you to reach the end more than once: each ending changes whose story you were watching.