Nier: Automata Wasn’t Made To “Target” Anyone
What was the motivation behind Nier: Automata’s design? Who was the target audience?
Nier: Automata was the game that helped save Platinum Games from closing down. As the title got over 3 million sales, and they received rave reviews from pretty much everyone. But, as producer Yoko Taro noted in an interview with The Guardian, after not having much success with the previous Nier titles, he decided to go a different route:
“For Nier: Automata, I wasn’t told to target anyone. I just made what I wanted to, and I tried to stay hidden from Square Enix as much as possible.”
He claims he wanted to make a game that was special and so he “didn’t overthink it”. Also, despite the “weirdness” of the title, he claims it’s perfectly normal:
“To be honest, I think I am making normal games targeted towards normal people,” he says. “But ultimately when I release those normal games, weird people find them to be weird games and enjoy them. Which probably means there’s something wrong with me.”