Saito Yosuke is working on a new project with Yoko Taro and Keichi Okabe, but they are keeping quiet about what exactly is in development under the supervision of the three Japanese developers.
Saito works as a NieR producer at Square Enix (where he serves as a senior executive). Weekly told Famitsu that they've started a new project with NieR (and former Drakengard) director Yoko Taro, and Okabe Keiichi (Monaca), in charge of the soundtrack. They spoke to Hiroyuki Kobayashi, a former Capcom producer: he now runs Chinese company NetEase Games' GPTRACK50 studio.
Saito said that he had wanted to do something new with Yuko and Okabe for a long time. There will soon be something that will be in a more “cohesive” state in the not too distant future, and he asked us to be patient. Maybe it's a NieR sequel, maybe not, he added, almost laughing. That's all you can say about this concept. At the same time, he has some ideas to create something that does not exist yet, and he cannot devote all his time to it. So he basically left that task to the crew, but Saito thinks something really interesting is starting to take shape. He can't wait for the curtain to come down on this other project.
You can already feel here that Square Enix's strategy has changed (we have already reported about this), and now the Japanese company may be somewhat panicking after the value of its shares fell by 15% in one day (we also wrote about this). Square Enix wants to make fewer but higher quality games, and with NieR: Automata being considered a huge success, it was only a matter of time before they encouraged Yoko Taro and the others to develop a new episode. If Final Fantasy XVI and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth don't reach their sales goals, perhaps other IPs should be dealt with.
NieR may be able to help them. Maybe not.
source: Gimatsu, Discussion games
