It’s been nine years since Nier: Automata first graced the PlayStation 4 and broke through to players beyond director Yoko Taro’s usual esoteric action-RPG fandom. But there hasn’t been a new game since. Fans are desperate for that to chance. Square Enix just gave them fresh hope.
“Nier: Automata to be continued.” That’s how a celebratory trailer during an anniversary livestream on Friday ended. It could mean a lot of things. Fans hope it means Nier: Automata 2, or a fresh RPG within the Nier lineage that goes wherever Taro wants to take it.
The action-RPG stars an android named 2B in a post-apocalyptic world where human-made robots are at war with invading alien machines. Developed by PlatinumGames, the combat sings and thanks to Taro’s baroque storytelling process, the game must be played and finished multiple times to reveal its true secrets.
Set in the same world as 2010’s Nier, it succeeded way beyond the cult-classic legacy of the original. A PS4 exclusive when it first launched, Nier: Automata was also a surprising bright spot in a mixed portfolio at Square Enix. The company announced the game surpassed 10 million sales in this week’s anniversary stream. The obvious questions is why wouldn’t the Final Fantasy maker greenlight a sequel?
2B has been in plenty of other games as a guest character (or costume), and a mobile spin-off Nier Reincarnation launched in 2021. But there’s never been a proper console sequel. If Square’s latest tease is actually for another mobile game, manga spin-off, or some other sort of transmedia adaptation, fans will riot.
What has Yoko Taro been up to?
For all of the love around his games, Taro hasn’t been shy about his struggles to get a new project off the ground. “I often get told stuff like ‘Why aren’t you making a new sequel to 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,” he said back in 2025.
９周年記念放送おわりました！ご視聴ご来場頂いた皆様、アリガトウゴザイマシタ！！ https://t.co/BCNwYjqcIz pic.twitter.com/rdG1KkYeYN
— yokotaro (@yokotaro) February 20, 2026
“I’ve actually been working on some stuff, it’s just that it never ended up seeing the light of day,” he continued. “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.”
It’s hard to believe that the guy who only ever appears in public wearing a mask of one of the characters from the first Nier wouldn’t want to keep working on the franchise. He appeared in the this week’s anniversary stream and tweeted about the new sales milestone but hasn’t let any cryptic hints slip about the franchise’s future. Yet.
But if we somehow never got a new Nier: Automata game, well, that would be sort of fitting as well. “Life is unfair,” he told Kotaku back in 2017.
