Yoko Taro Denies ‘NieR: Automata’ Was Altered to Avoid Western Censorship: “I’ve never heard of such a thing happening.”
As you know, the original NieR game, which came out as a spin-off from the Drakengard series, wasn’t all that popular, but it became a beloved cult classic. When a sequel, NieR: Automata was released in 2017, it changed everything.
The game became a global hit, selling millions of copies and revitalizing the NieR franchise in a proper way. The original game got a remaster, a new mobile game was released, and even an anime series… not to mention the collabs!
And while the fans are waiting for more information on a potential sequel, the game’s director recently responded to a rumor that the developers were faced with restrictions when designing the characters in order to avoid censorship in the West.
NieR: Automata is a game that is mostly focused on delivering a proper story and expanding the tragedy-filled, yet beautiful world created by Yoko Taro. Of course, as it often is with Japanese content, some of the designs are atypical, so to say, from a Western perspective, potentially even explicit.
“Our concept is always to do something that’s ‘not like anything else’. What I mean is, if Nier: Replicant had a boy as the main character, Nier: Automata would have a girl protagonist. If Western sci-fi is filled with Marine-like soldiers, we might go in the opposite direction and use Gothic Lolita outfits, for example. We tend to take the contrarian route,” Yoko Taro said in a recent interview.
And while the Japanese have a different view on these things than people in the West, it’s generally not an issue, as producer Yosuke Saito added.
“There are, of course, certain things that are ethically or morally inappropriate – even if they’re just aspects of a character.We try to draw a line by establishing rules about what’s acceptable and what’s not,” he said. While certain things might be acceptable in Japan, they could become problematic in certain overseas regions, and even characters could become problematic as well. These are the kind of situation[s] we usually try to avoid creating. As a result, there are actually countries where we couldn’t officially release Nier: Automata.”
But, while Saito and Taro were clear in explaining their approach, the Internet recently saw an article claim that Yoko Taro and his team were restriced in the design proces in order to avoid potential censorship in the West. Taro was asked to comment on that on social media, and he did:
そんな話聞いたことないですね……
— yokotaro (@yokotaro) June 12, 2025
RT: @felixmtz9830
スクエアはもう自由にデザインさせてくれないの？それって本当？ https://t.co/kC1KQGzEfO
In case you don’t know Japanese, Taro said that he had never heard of such a thing happening, and Saito later added that he thought that the issue actually stems from a mistranslation of what he said in a Japanese interview.
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