At G-CON 2025 in Korea, NieR creator Yoko Taro pushed back on a running joke among fans that he hasn’t been doing any work. Speaking alongside Bayonetta director Hideki Kamiya, the masked auteur said he’s been involved in a number of projects in recent years — they simply never made it to release.
"I’ve actually been working on some stuff"
"People often ask me why I don't make a sequel to NieR, or why I'm not working," Yoko told the audience, according to translations of his remarks at the panel. "I've actually been working on some stuff, it's just that it never ended up seeing the light of day. I got paid for it, so I personally have no issues with that, but people seem to think that I haven't been doing anything just because none of the work I've done is being released."
The blunt admission reframes a perception that has grown online: where fans see silence, Taro sees cancelled work. He declined to specify which projects were discontinued or why, but stressed that cancellations are not unusual in today's games industry.
Context: a turbulent industry and a cautious creator
Yoko’s comments arrived as part of a broader industry moment marked by high-profile cancellations, studio shake‑ups and publishers rethinking release strategies. In recent years, major projects at large companies have been shelved and some publishers have publicly signalled a shift toward fewer, higher‑budget releases. That environment makes it easier for even veteran creators to have work vanish before announcement.
For his part, Yoko framed the cancellations philosophically rather than bitterly. "I don't view that as a negative thing," he said. "I believe that if I'm going to release something weird, I'd be better off not releasing anything at all." The comment echoes choices he has made elsewhere in his career: after NieR: Automata (2017) he pursued smaller, experimental projects such as the tabletop‑styled Voice of Cards trilogy (2021–22), the not‑quite‑a‑remake NieR Replicant release, and several mobile titles, some of which have since folded or been discontinued.
Fans, publishers and the question of expectations
Reactions among fans are mixed. Many expressed frustration at the lack of a true new, non‑gacha NieR mainline title; others urged patience, noting the risks of releasing unfinished or compromised work. Some commentators have pointed to publisher strategies — including announcements in 2024 from large publishers about trimming release schedules in favor of quality control — as a likely factor behind canceled projects.
Developers and industry watchers note that cancellations can stem from many causes: changing business priorities, budget pressures, creative differences, or shifting market forecasts. For an idiosyncratic creator like Yoko Taro, whose games often push tonal and structural boundaries, the calculus can be especially fraught: a project that fits his vision may not fit a publisher’s profitability targets.
What it means for NieR and future projects
Speculation about a new NieR title has swirled for years — some fans had eyed 2027, on the tenth anniversary of NieR: Automata, as a possible milestone for a big announcement. Yoko’s remarks make clear, however, that being "involved" in projects does not guarantee public follow‑through.
He remains sanguine. Cancelling a project, he suggested, can be a form of quality control: better to fail quietly than to release something that doesn’t meet his standards or that ruins an idea in execution. That stance will be reassuring to some fans and frustrating to others who want more frequent releases.
The takeaways
- Yoko Taro says he has been actively working, but many of those projects were discontinued before release.
- His comments reflect broader industry trends of cancellations and shifting publisher strategies.
- Yoko prefers non‑release to a compromised product and says he harbors no personal resentment about being paid for cancelled work.
- For fans: patience may be required — creative ambition plus commercial realities mean visible output can lag behind a creator’s activity.
Whether the next project that survives development will be a new NieR, an experimental spin‑off, or something entirely different remains unknown. For now, Yoko’s message is simple: he’s been busy, even if most of what he’s done so far never reached players.