.

"Please play on PlayStation 4," he said in response to a question about what Xbox players can expect.

Taro and Saito explained that the new Nier project is more focused on creating an original story within the game world, and won't follow the narrative of the original. However, we can expect several Nier characters to make cameos. There will be these kind of connections, but Taro emphasized that newcomers won't feel alienated if they come to the new game without playing the original. Returning players, however, will enjoy a lot of nods and easter eggs from its predecessor.

Another feature that made Nier unique was how it treated player choice at the end of it the game and incentivized repeat playthroughs. There are five possible endings in Nier, all of which encourage you to go back into the game and try your hand at saving things again.

In one particular ending, you're asked to either sacrifice yourself to save someone or let them die. If you sacrifice yourself, the game wipes your save file--effectively deleting all traces of your adventure. To add insult to injury, it won't let you use the same file name you did on your previous playthrough, as if the game itself was telling you to move on. It's a bold move for a game, one that unfortunately (fortunately?) won't be repeated.

"We are going to maintain that multiple playthrough idea for the new project, but in terms of the save file deletion thing, we probably won't do it, since we did it in the original one and want to do new things," Taro explained. "But we will have multiple playthroughs involved. But you know... we're still in early phases of development. Maybe we will delete you save files."

The original Nier's level design was a mash of different genres; Players spent most of the time controlling Nier as you would in a typical third-person action game, but for select fights, the camera would swing up to a top-down perspective. On other occasions, it would switch to a side-on platformer, with some sequences more closely following conventions of shoot-em-up. This worked for some players, but not all, but the constant switching ensured that gameplay rarely got stale. The new game likely won't follow this pattern, however.

"Members of the media told me the original Nier is like a puppy someone threw out."

director Yoko Taro

The new Nier will, however, retain the tone of the original game and the Drakengard series. It will keep its mature subject matter and approach to dialogue and presentation, not shying away from hyper-violence and sexualization.

"Drakengard was my first game as director, and we were actually told a lot by our advisory board to do retakes and make changes and honestly, I said, screw this, I'm not making another one," Taro said.

"I thought, with Nier, I'm going to make a normal game. That's what I tried to make, a normal game, though people think it's very dark and somber. But for me, that's normal."

He added: "The way I look at original Nier is like your mom's home cooking: it may not be the best, but it's okay, you're comfortable with it. Members of the media told me the original Nier is like a puppy someone threw out. It's cute in a way, but there's something wrong in a sense, and you can't help but love it even though there's something missing and you can't put your finger on it.

"But now we're working with Platinum games, and with Yoshida and Okabe, and we feel we have these great ingredients now. Is it going to be too perfect? We have all these great chefs, if you will, working together, and now, is it going to be missing that thing that made it so endearing to our fans? But after thinking about it, we think, we're just going to try it and see how it goes."