NieR creator Yoko Taro is known as a unique and unconventional game director. He shaped the universe of Drakengard and after that, its spin-off NieR which just received a highly acclaimed sequel titled NieR: Automata.
Yoko Taro was recently interviewed by toco toco, a Japanese program about artists and creators. True to his fame, he criticized the repetitive gameplay found in most AAA titles while giving us a glimpse into his mindset as a game creator.
Looking at AAA titles, of course I find them beautiful and interesting, but after 20 minutes of gameplay, I wonder whether it is going to be the same for the following 20 hours. I am a bit tired of this.
If possible, I would like to make games that are unexpected, games that keep changing form. This is the mindset I had when I created the first NieR game, and it is present in NieR: Automata as well.
Luckily, a video game is a media that can take multiple forms, and those forms keep changing with time. I really enjoy this freedom and I want to keep making new forms of games, and share them with players.
It is the first type of media where the user can participate and obtain an almost immediate response. As a creator, I don't want to impose something to the player, nor to tell them that there is only one answer.
Answers, themes, discoveries, objects...I would be happy if players could find all of these themselves. Which is why I think I shouldn't be imposing any solid rules. If people from the industry were telling me I have to do this or that, I would run straight in the opposite direction, in order to find if there aren't any other options elsewhere.
We reviewed NieR: Automata last month, with Kai rating it 9.2/10. The game is available now on PlayStation 4 and PC.
You’ll laugh; you’ll cry; you might even contemplate whether androids are capable of feeling emotion at all or if they’re merely going by what they were programmed to do. NieR: Automata rewards long-time fans of Yoko Taro’s works with an experience that transcends any single genre. Although it might not be a perfect game, the sum of NieR: Automata’s unique storytelling meshed with Platinum Games’ style of action meld together into a title well deserving of being one of my personal Games of the Year, not for the story being told but rather HOW 2B’s story was told.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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