The Nier: Automata anime has announced its release date with new trailers as the tie-in for one of the best RPG games follows in the footsteps of Cyberpunk Edgerunners, League of Legends Arcane, Dota 2 Dragon’s Blood, and The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf to put an anime spin on another popular videogame series. The trailers give us a glimpse of protagonists 2B and 9S as they embark on their anime adventure.
Game director Yoko Taro and the show’s director Ryoji Masuyama discussed the show’s creation and direction at Aniplex Online Fest, where the trailers were unveiled. “When I actually heard about making an anime version, I thought, ‘What? This late?’” says Yoko Taro, who explains that he was convinced of the potential by the Aniplex team. Masuyama says he was excited to tackle the challenge of a show with leading characters that hide their eyes, as they “are important symbols in any given anime.”
If you’ve played Nier: Automata you’ll already know what an emotional journey the game is, so getting to relive it in a new form will certainly have fans excited to see what directions the anime takes. Yoko Taro explains that “Nier: Automata was a story we created to be a game, so copying it as-is wouldn’t make an interesting story for an anime.” Therefore, we can expect to see some changes to the narrative – we’d expect no less from Yoko Taro, after all.
Yoko Taro says he was eager to change things up, despite initial insistence from Aniplex to keep things faithful to the original story. He even notes the respect that Masuyama shows for the game, saying with his usual self-deprecating flair, “I’m the one going around and breaking things for them, so if anyone is dissatisfied, it’s likely to be my fault.”
Nier: Automata anime Ver1.1a arrives in January 2023. You can watch the full presentation including both character trailers and the discussion between Yoko Taro and Ryoji Masuyama from Aniplex Online Fest below:
If you missed the recent Nier: Automata hidden church saga, we have all the information for you. We’ve also taken a look at some rather gorgeous Nier: Automata gaming PCs from Square Enix. Meanwhile, our pick of the best anime games on PC should give you plenty of options to satisfy your anime needs in the meantime.