Nier Creator Yoko Taro Admits His Slow Writing Is His Signature — and He’s Sneaky Enough to Get Away With It
A top writer has mastered a risky edge: make the pages indispensable, then deliver them late. Why an industry keeps waiting.
Yoko Taro just explained how he gets away with writing slowly, and the method is both hilarious and a little devious. Classic Yoko move: admit the chaos, then reveal the playbook.
The setup
In a new interview with Archipel on YouTube, the director behind Nier Replicant, Nier Automata, and the Drakengard series says the thing that most defines his writing style is... how slow he is. He knows that sounds like career suicide, so he built a workaround.
"I am sneaky in the way that I am good at creating situations where my writing is essential, but I am just late at it."
How the trick works (and why it is very inside baseball)
- Step 1: Kick off a project by showing quick progress so nobody worries.
- Step 2: As the team starts to rely on his specific writing, gradually slow down.
- Step 3: Use that extra time to polish the script while staying indispensable.
He is self-aware about it, too. If you are simply slow, you get sidelined or lose gigs. So he manufactures a situation where the project needs his exact voice, then leverages that to buy time. It is a little unfair, he admits, but it is his method. Also, he fully expects his producer to be mad if he finds out. Which, you know, he probably will, because this is on YouTube.
Why he can get away with it
Results. Nier Automata especially speaks for itself, and Yoko has been an endearing weirdo-enigma in the RPG space for years. When the output hits like that, people usually let the process be the process.
Bonus Yoko content incoming
If you cannot get enough of his brand of chaos and honesty, he has an entire book of interviews on the way. Given his track record of pulling back the curtain in entertaining ways, that sounds unmissable.