According to Yoko Taro, his decisions are based on what will sell his game, and he first listens to what the publisher wants him to do…and then he doesn’t; but since he’s always been such a weirdo as the creator of NieR and Drakengard, it’s only natural for him to do so.
IGN interviewed him and Stellar Blade director Kim Hyung-tae. Taro admitted that NieR: Automata copied Neon Genesis Evangelion in a way that suited the market. He said that when you play Stellar Blade, you can immediately see how different it is from NieR: Automata. If it had been identical to it, only with a macho protagonist, people wouldn’t have pointed out the similarities, because the fact is that there aren’t many games with a similar style. He also praised the game’s technology and production values, saying that South Korean and Chinese developers are much more reactive to what’s happening in the game industry than the Japanese: they use middleware technology instead of their own engines, and he said that’s partly why the Japanese game industry hit a low in the late 2000s and early 2010s.
Taro said of NieR: Automata’s protagonist, 2B, that he wanted to create a style with less competition. Taro told Kim that his South Korean colleague makes games as an artist without thinking too much about business details, and yet he has more than 300 employees, while Taro is always thinking about business and doesn’t even own a company. Taro appreciated the praise for his game’s story, but revealed that it’s a retelling of Evangelion, so there’s not much originality in it. Then he took a swipe at publisher Square Enix: he says he’s been a slave to the Japanese company for years and that’s why he doesn’t have his own company, or maybe he was taken in by NieR producer Yosuke Saito and it’s his fault (he’s joking, of course). He listens to what the publisher wants him to do and then doesn’t do it. Taro was inspired to work in the industry by Gradius, and when he develops something he hopes to do something that people haven’t seen before, and that’s what Gradius did to him.
He’s an interesting character, but that’s what makes him unique.
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