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Yokō Tarō, Yōsuke Saitō Explain "NieR: Automata to be continued …" Message

The May 14 issue of the Japanese game magazine Famitsu celebrated the popular game NieR:Automata with an interview with the game's production staff. The interviewer asked the game's director Yokō Tarō and producer Yōsuke Saitō about the cryptic message “NieR:Automata to be continued…” at the end of the February 20 video that commemorated 10 million copies of the game shipped or downloaded.

Saitō responded, “I was the one who asked for that to be included. I don't know if there will be a sequel, but I felt including 'to be continued…' was an absolute must for the ninth anniversary video."

Yokō added, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, “I suspect the message is something like, 'We're not done, we're going to keep raking it in.'”

Saitō countered, “Ending on the ninth anniversary feels a little unsatisfying, so wouldn't you want to keep going until the 10th anniversary?”

The interview then touched upon the game staff's April Fool's Day joke teasing a new NieR project. The joke post said, “New NieR Project Production Kettei”. However, rather than using the usual kanji characters for kettei, 決定 (Green-Lit), the post used the (meaningless) homonym kanji 血定 (literally, "Established Blood"). (Trust us, it's a little bit funnier in Japanese. A little bit.)

Saitō said the post was just an April Fool's Day joke, but noted NieR fans were more excited than he expected. Yokō elaborated, “We debated about how to present the joke. Originally, it said 'Release Green-Lit,' but we changed it to 'Release Not Green-Lit' because we were worried people might misunderstand.”

However, Yokō said that the staff had second thoughts, realizing the “Release Not Green-Lit” wording could lead to even more confusion: “Saitō pointed out, 'Since it's April Fool's Day, wouldn't 'Release Not Green-Lit' mean this is a lie, and therefore it's actually green-lit?' He said some people might read too much into it.”

Saitō then explained they went with Yokō's idea of using the kanji 血定 for the April Fool's Day joke. “Looking back now, I don't really get what '血定" means,” Yokō concluded.

NieR:Automata launched in spring 2017 for the PlayStation 4 and subsequently on PC, Xbox One, and the Nintendo Switch. The game is the sequel to 2010's NieR. The game saw an anime adaptation, NieR:Automata Ver1.1a, in January 2023. As of press time, the staff has not announced any more new NeiR projects.

Sources: Famitsu May 14, 2026 issue, Famitsu's website, Square Enix's YouTube channel, NieR's X/Twitter account via Hachima Kikō