History of NieR with YOKO TARO, Yosuke Saito, and Keiichi Okabe | Game Maker’s Notebook Podcast

Shuhei Yoshida chats with YOKO TARO, Yosuke Saito, and Keiichi Okabe about their work in the NieR series. Together they discuss the early development of the NieR series and its connections to the Drakengard series; the early development of NieR: Automata and critical decisions regarding the gameplay, story, and music; deciding to release a new version of NieR: Replicant for overseas fans; and their thoughts on current development both inside and outside of Japan. 0:00 Introduction 3:10 Interview Start 4:12 NieR / Drakengard Connection 7:33 NieR’s Unique Gameplay Mechanics 10:10 Adding the Route System to the Game 12:41 Scale of Games from PS2 to PS3 Era 14:49 NieR Gestalt vs NieR Replicant 16:35 Music in the NieR franchise 25:21 Developing NieR:Automata 39:48 How Music changed for NieR:Automata 41:57 Decisions made on NieR Replicant “Version Upgrade“ 45:58 How NieR brought Okabe-san back into music 50:56 Thoughts on Game Release Reactions 5