After teasing Nier 3, Nier: Automata creator Yoko Taro signs up for some brutal irony: an AI telling him to stop posting on social media and start writing games that make sense

Nier Automata director Yoko Taro
(Image credit: Square Enix)

Nier Automata director Yoko Taro got told to stop posting about ramen and get back to working on games by a particularly nasty roast bot.

The Drakengard and Nier developer jumped on the (now downtrending) trend of having an AI bot go through your social media account to deliver a savage roast, and thankfully, he posted the diss online for all to see. 

"Ah, the enigmatic Yoko Taro, hiding behind that creepy moon mask while tweeting about ramen like it's the pinnacle of culinary achievement," the roast bot begins, referencing Taro's infamous headgear that he wears in every public appearance. "Your tweets read like a fever dream of a starving artist who stumbled into game development. Maybe if you spent less time on game mechanics, your fans wouldn't need an encyclopaedia to understand your plots." (Good spot, Automaton.)

That sounds like pretty harsh criticism from a frustrated player who got through one set of credits in Nier Automata and quit the game without realizing there was about 20 more endings that make everything comprehensible to those of us who don't own encyclopaedias. 

But, alas, Taro didn't seem to mind that his ramen posts were under fire, only captioning the post with a simple description: "The remains of a roast that was popular for a while." He's spent enough time dealing with meaner robots, I guess. 

Since Nier Automata became a massive breakout hit seven years ago, Taro has worked on one mobile spin-off, a remaster to the first game in the series, and a trio of turn-based card games, but no follow-up to the best-selling action-melodrama. All hope isn't lost, though.

The director did tease a third mainline Nier earlier in the year, before a series producer revealed that several Automata leads had reunited for a game that "might be Nier" or "might not be Nier." So, Nier 3, or whatever it ends up maybe being called, is definitely possible. We'll just need to follow the lead of wine (yes, the drink) and age in Nier Automata's soundtrack in the meantime. 

Nier Automata’s Yoko Taro says the beloved RPG was “most inspired” by Neon Genesis Evangelion: “It’s pretty much just a retelling of Evangelion, so there’s not much originality to it.”

Freelance contributor

Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.

Read more
Nier Automata
Square Enix announces event for the Nier series' 15th anniversary, and fans are hoping Nier Automata will finally get a sequel after 8 years
Nier Automata
Dystopian smash-hit Nier: Automata reaches 9 million copies sold
Horizon Forbidden West
As Sony trots out an AI-powered Aloy, Horizon Zero Dawn fans revel in the irony: "The entire game is a warning against this kind of nonsense"
Balatro
Balatro creator hits back at AI art spread on the roguelike's subreddit: "I don't use it in my game, I think it does real harm to artists of all kinds"
Garcia Hostspur stands in the middle of a stained glass image in the keyart for Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered
What makes a Suda51 game? "Mainly pro wrestling," he says, and Grasshopper's new game couldn't avoid it if they tried
Death Stranding 2 screenshot
Hideo Kojima is hard at work on Death Stranding 2, but he doesn't know how much longer he can stand the grueling game development process: "It's incredibly tough"
Latest in JRPG
Screenshot of a Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition protagonist with short pink hair and a shocked expression.
Sci-fi JRPG Xenoblade Chronicles X's overpowered combat system is back in Definitive Edition, and it's taken fans mere hours to deal millions of damage in 1 hit: "New Arts are so broken"
A screenshot from an animated cutscene in Persona 4 Golden, showing Teddie and protagonist Yu Narukami stood looking surprised.
Persona 4 fans are in shambles as website domain for "p4re" appears, potentially following in the footsteps of the Persona 3 Reload announcement
Strohl, Gallica, the protagonist, and Hulkenberg in a Metaphor: ReFantazio anime cutscene screenshot.
2024's best single-player game Metaphor: ReFantazio threatens to be 2025's best multiplayer game as one modder works to add online co-op to the JRPG
Clair Obscure Expedition 33
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 builds on a "heritage of JRPGs" like Final Fantasy 7, 8, 9, and 10, but it's also "inspired by Sekiro" and taking pieces from deckbuilders
Xenosaga Episode 2
A canon spin-off of beloved JRPG series Xenosaga was once feared to be lost media, but 21 years later, it's been preserved and is finally getting a fan translation
Two Skells flying around a lush green area in Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition.
Sci-fi JRPG Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition is tied with Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 as the 3rd highest-rated game of the year on Metacritic so far
Latest in News
A screenshot from MindsEye showing a character leaning out of a car, shooting another car with a gun.
GTA veteran says the games industry needs to "get smarter" about what people actually want: "There are so many games, and I think we're starting to feel the effects"
Posing with a rifle in the Fallout 76 Ghoul update
Fallout 76's art director "had to fight really hard" so Bethesda would make the MMO's map bigger than Skyrim's
Minecraft movie image of Jack Black as steve
Don't expect Minecraft to go free-to-play anytime soon, as Mojang says "It doesn't really work with the way we built it"
Yasuke looking over the water to a shrine during sunset in Assassin's Creed Shadows
Assassin's Creed Shadows has an entire island stuffed with adorable kittens you need to check out, and it's based on an actual Japanese cat paradise
phase zero key art showing zombies in a hallway
Former Witcher 3 and Dying Light devs reveal their Resident Evil homage, complete with PS1-style fixed cameras
Shadow of Mordor's Nemesis System was only created because WB Games wanted something to combat Batman Arkham Asylum's second-hand sales, exec says