Yoko Taro and Yosuke Saito Talk About How the NieR Replicant Upgrade Started and Why Toylogic

NieR series creator Yoko Taro and series producer Yosuke Saito talked about how the NieR Replicant ‘upgraded version’ started and more in a recent interview with Dengeki.

Dengeki: With NieR Replicant getting a version update with ‘ver.1.22474487139…’ some fans have speculated that it means a jump from ‘ver.1.1′ to beyond ver.1.2’ and such. Are there any meanings behind those numbers?

Yoko Taro: “We got those numbers from this and that, but I forget what happened.”

With the 10th anniversary in mind, who was it that got the ball rolling?

Yosuke Saito: “It started with ‘We gotta do something since it’s the 10th anniversary!’. We’re psyched about it all.”

The title logo has Grimoire Weiss and a chain-like object added to it. Can you tell us more about the design?

Yoko Taro: “The chain represents the curse that binds me to Replicant even after 10 years have passed. That is a lie. Log designer-san put it together and it looked cool so we left it like that.”

Tell us how it was decided that Toylogic would handle its development.

Yosuke Saito: “Well they did help out in the development of Dragon Quest X and Dragon Quest  XI, and since they have a number of staff members who worked on NieR Gestalt/Replicant, we decided to ask them. There’s one more [reason for it], but that’s a secret.”

How do you work together with Toylogic, Yoko-san? Do you have a temporary seat at the company as you did at PlatinumGames for NieR: Automata?

Yoko Taro: “I do not have a seat at Toylogic. We basically have a talk about once a month or something like that.”

What about the director being handsome, do you think you can work together with a mutual agreement? [Editor’s note: Question in reference to the long-running joke about Yoko Taro’s irrational hatred towards handsome guys.]

Yoko Taro: “That’s impossible…”

Saito-san, do you ever have any demands for Yoko-san?

Yosuke Saito: “I don’t really put in any requests as far as content goes. If anything, I might tell him something like ‘keep new work to a moderation’.”

To be honest, I still don’t get the ‘upgraded version’ part, even after you explained it in the livestream. There are various representations for what makes a remake or remaster, but what’s the same and what changed from the PS3 version?

Yosuke Saito: “There are just so many secrets, I can’t say anything… [laughs]. In any case, please look forward to it. I think that even if the story is the same, you should feel something completely different with it being fully-voiced.

Yoko Taro: “I understand about not getting the ‘version upgrade’ thing. Same here. From this point onwards, therefore, I’d like to change it to the ‘illegally remodified version’. Illegally remodeling…. it must be nice.”

Does the story of ver.1.22474487139… take place in a different world line as NieR Replicant on PS3? Or is it the exact same world line?

Yoko Taro: “I’m really not sure.”

The game is known for its various endings based on playthroughs, so… can we expect a new ending?

Yoko Taro: “You’re all free to expect whatever you want. And we’re also free to betray those expectations, however we want. Everything is free… long live freedom…”

NieR Replicant is in development for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.  NieR Gestalt and NieR Replicant first released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in April 2010. You can read some more tidbits on new additions in our previous report.