While it appears that NieR creator Yoko Taro has been taking a breather ever since the series exploded into over 13 million sales, this appearance is contrary to reality. It seems Square Enix has been backpedaling and canceling many of Yoko Taro’s projects. 

The last projects the creative director and game designer have worked on were Voice of Cards: The Beasts of Burden in 2022, NieR Reincarnation (albeit a mobile gacha game) in 2021, and another mobile title, 404 Game Re:set in 2023.

The last mainline AAA release Yoko Taro worked on was NieR: Automata, which was released in February 2017 for the last-gen PlayStation 4, with many wondering about the series’ future and what Yoko Taro has been cooking up.

During G-CON 2025 in South Korea, Yoko Taro shared the stage with Bayonetta creator Hideki Kamiya in a panel hosted by Katsuhiko Hayashi. Reported by 4Gamer, Taro addressed the elephant in the room when asked about his recent developments. He stated that he’s been working on multiple projects over the years, which, unfortunately, had been scrapped midway through development.

Taro further elaborated:

I’ve had so many projects that have been discontinued lately. I often get sold stuff like ‘Why aren’t you making NieR’ or ‘Yoko Taro isn’t doing anything,’ but that’s because recently, a lot of projects I was involved in got discontinued midway through development.

I’ve actually been working on some stuff, but it’s just never seen 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.

However, Taro isn’t feeling hopeless about the situation, as he believes it helps push a stronger emphasis on quality over quantity in an industry now infamous for year-over-year rushed releases. He further mentioned:

“I don’t view that as a negative thing. I believe that if I’m going to release something weird, I’d be better off not releasing anything at all.”

Yoko Taro has always experimented with eccentric titles, Drakengard, NieR, and the Voice of Cards trilogy, which unfortunately flew under the radar. So, his unconventional ideas might not always align with publishers like Square Enix. It may be a while before we get another Yoko Taro game or NieR entry, as he returns to the drawing board.

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Rahim Amir Noorali – Tech Writer – 508 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2025

I am a UAE-based tech writer who likes to build and benchmark PCs both professionally and as a hobby. I contribute to multiple tech publications, including TechRadar and Notebookcheck, as well as Game Rant, where I focus primarily on news, commerce, and buying guides. When I’m not scouring the internet for the latest in tech stories, you will find me playing a game of Civilization or DotA with friends and frenemies alike while dropping recommendations for Apple TV+’s Foundation to everyone I come across.