It’s now 11945 AD, during the 14th machine war (those arbitrary numbers conveying from the beginning just how endless and pointless the conflict is), and the robot proxies haven’t heard from their masters in centuries.

The game takes place amid a proxy war between humans in exile on the moon and alien invaders, fought entirely by robots on both sides. But it has sold over 1.1m copies worldwide. Released in March, the post-apocalyptic action adventure Nier: Automata is funny, heartbreaking and yes, it is weird. In June 2015, publisher Square Enix announced that Taro would be making a new NieR title with PlatinumGames, the revered and experienced team behind action titles like Bayonetta and Vanquish – and also well known for transplanting its deep combat mechanics to established licences through its work on Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and Transformers Devastation. Given a talented team and a decent budget it was always possible he’d create a crossover hit, something to intrigue a larger audience than his fanbase. But even at their weirdest and most frustrating, they possess a unique kind of heart, and extend a rare kind of trust. They ship with their technical seams showing. The video game equivalents of low budget B-movies, his projects have never sold well, have never been well funded and have always lacked graphical polish. He always asks us to extend our sympathy equally to flawed protagonists and victims alike. Yet his approach to design is weird only insofar as it’s rare for someone to understand that games about killing hundreds of people shouldn’t end happily or heroically. He rarely shows his face in public or interviews, preferring to talk from behind a sock puppet or the eerie wide grin of a mask. Taro is famous for the eccentric persona he presents to the world. That is the best possible description of what he makes. He called the talk “Weird Games for Weird People”. I n 2014, game designer Yoko Taro gave a talk about the creative process behind his cult PlayStation 3 title Nier: Replicant.

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