Summary
Despite there only being two mainline games in the series (not including remasters and mobile games),Nierturned 15 years old earlier this month, really driving home how long it’s been since we last got a new game. While we didn’t get an announcement for the 15th anniversary, Square Enix has marked the occasion with some tweets, a special livestream, and now an interview with the minds behind the series.
Nier series creative director Yoko Taro and producer Yosuke Saito are the ones responsible for Nier’s explosion in popularity,and the two were recently interviewedabout working on the series over the past 15 years. The two were asked about their inspirations, favorite moments, and biggest challenges during development,and in typical Yoko Taro fashion, some of his answers are pretty bizarre.
Nier Automata Director Yoko Taro Says He Was “Almost Fired” During Development
One of the more interesting comments from Taro reveals that he was actually “almost fired” during the development ofNier Automata, and that there were “a lot of times during the development where I thought that I would quit”. Apparently, one of the things that Taro struggled with was coming into the office at 10am every day, despite not having mandated hours due to his role as a freelancer at Square Enix.
“But probably the biggest challenge for me was that even though I hadn’t signed any contracts about specific work hours, I was told that I needed to come into the office at 10am every morning, and as I continued to ignore this instruction, I was almost fired,” says Taro.
“I never did go in for 10am though.”
On a similar note, Saito claims that some of his biggest challenges were when Taro “seemed like he was going to throw in the towel”, and that he “held him back” from doing so. Thankfully, both of them persevered in the end, and we got an absolute banger of a game in Nier Automata as a result.
Hopefully, the duo aren’t too scarred by their experience working on the title to maybe revisit Nier in the near future. In fact, it sounded as though both had a big announcement in the wingswhen talking about the game at the end of last year, as Saito teased that he would do “maybe something with the next game, or developments related tothat…” in 2025. Fingers crossed he wasn’t blowing smoke and we hear something soon.
