What drives Taro’s desire to make things? His answer is immediate: “Because to live, you need money.” After a pause, though, he continues. Of course, I still mix a bit of alcohol in here and there.” “I love alcohol, but these days I can feel my body breaking apart from it, so I usually drink diet coke,” he deadpans.

“It might just be age.”Īge is also having an effect on Taro’s publicly stated habit of writing while inebriated. “ Saito said to me, ‘You’ve gotten soft,’” says Taro.

Nier: Automata, however, ends on a hopeful note. I don’t aim for bad endings – they just naturally come out.” The reason my games are chaotic is that the world is chaotic, not me. That is why people can empathise with the suffering of characters. “The reason why there are so many characters who suffer in my games,” says Taro, “is that I want to show reality. Whatever form they come in, Taro’s works tend towards existential nihilism and pyrrhic victories, with characters often moving tragically and inexorably towards pain and self-destruction. I just made what I wanted to, and I tried to stay hidden from Square Enix as much as possible.” “For Nier: Automata, I wasn’t told to target anyone. “But it didn’t end in great sales,” explains Taro, “so we stopped overthinking it.” The previous game in the series, Nier, even had protagonists aimed at different markets: a hulking, older warrior in the western release and a slender youth in the Japanese version. Taro’s other games have made occasional gestures towards mass appeal, but have not always hit the mark. “What’s great about them is their company is full of people who are actually otaku (pop culture fans),” he says, “so it was very enjoyable and easy to work with them.”

Taro attributes part of Nier’s popularity in the west to the efforts of video game translation firm 8-4, whose vivacious translation brought the game to life in English. Not bad for a philosophical, occasionally obtuse game that ricochets between adrenaline-spiking robotic destruction and sober contemplation of the meaning of existence. Taro’s games have long been considered obscure classics, but Automata – funded by publishing giant Square Enix and developed by action experts Platinum Games – sold 3m worldwide. Judging by Nier: Automata’s sales figures, there sure are a lot of weird people in the world.

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