What do you mean? There’s like 10,000 (?) years of history between replicant and automata. There’s so much that could happen. They could lean hard into the cyclic timeline theme and have literally the same story set up as automata just have it play out completely differently. Maybe an origin story for the machine lifeforms. I don’t think a direct sequel will ever happen but there’s a lot in the nier universe to explore.
NieR spoilerNieR ended with the guaranteed extinction of humanity, not to mention the complete cessation of earth’s rotation. Like, that’s the END of the world right there. Automata introduced aliens and their machines into the mix to make a story even possible. I don’t think I ever learned how life even continues to exist during automata’s time. At the end of Automata, the YorHa problem’s more or less solved, and rehashing it doesn’t seem like it’d be worth another game. Maybe another left field element could come in to spark a sequel? But i dunno. It’s not something I can imagine, but maybe Yoko Taro’s got something cooking.
This comment will include a lot of spoilers for the yokoverse. Continue at your own peril.
Anyway, just to give you an idea of how little any of this matters to Yoko Taro, here's how his stories have developed:
Drakengard: Ends with absolute apocalypse, total destruction of the world, no coming back.
Nier: Let's go ahead and change the name and say that all the Drakengard stuff has now entered a new dimension. Our dimension! The story technically goes on, and THIS time we'll have the absolute apocalypse of OUR world.
Drakengard 3: Where do we go to continue the Darkengard name? Make it a prequel! Ezpz. Also we already did interdimensional stuff so let's add time travel why not.
Nier Automata: Okay the world basically ended for humans, but who cares? Just make it all about legacy of humans.
You know what, we can do even more already. Why not pepper in some mobile games, like Nier Reincarnation and SINoALICE (yes, this is still Nier universe). Why keep it to games? Let's write light novels (YoRHa, Drakengard 1.3) and a stage play (YoRHa Boys). I am not even the biggest Yokostan so this list is probably incomplete.
My personal take is that this methodology is all very intentionally tied to the main theme of the Yokoverse, which is that no matter how dark and hopeless the situation may become, there is always a future; a new opportunity.
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