Yoko Taro

“I always believe that humans cannot completely get rid of issues such as violence and discrimination. I believe that humans are born with defects in some aspects… But I also believe that one day in the future, we need to look back at these defects and show them to everyone…”–Yoko Taro

Yoko Taro was born in Nagoya, Aichi in 1970. The third-largest city in Japan is full of traces of modernization. Taro was the first generation who played video games in Japan. It foreshadows his future career orientation. He studied at Kobe University of Art and Technology in the 1990s. After graduating from university, he worked as a 3D designer at Namco for a month and then went to Sugar Rocket. Waiting for SR to be acquired by Sony SCE, he went to Cavia Studio and started working with games in SE (Square Enix).

Due to his dislike of being photographed, he generally wears a mask when giving interviews or presenting games.

(Yoko Taro wearing a mask)

When he is not wearing a mask, Yokoo Taro looks no different from the others at the Game Developers Conference. He has a sparse gray beard and is wearing a black sweater. He shaved his head, his face was round, and he looked like an ordinary Japanese man.

(Yoko Taro holding his mask)

As a game director, Yoko Taro didn’t have much interest in huge propositions. For example, the “essence” of things, the truth of the universe, world outlook, and so on. Taro has never been popular with girls. He strongly believes that he always escapes reality and releases stress in virtual worlds such as animation and games. If the world is divided into two parts, “light and darkness,” he thinks he clearly belongs to the “dark” side. He said that he would curse the winners in life. His distorted personality also reflects his game characters. What he often does in his creation is to put some flawed people in an environment with fierce conflict and difficult conditions, and then describe how they survive in such an environment. He focuses on portraying how these unperfect characters continue their lives. One of the main aspects of his work is exploring the darker aspects of people, such as why they are driven to kill each other, although he typically does not share common opinion on his story’s dark natures. His writing technique, described as “backwards scriptwriting”, involves outlining the ending of the story first and building the narrative backwards from that point.

When Taro was young, he loved the video game Dragon Quest. Once he lost his save, he was sad. His parents, however, couldn’t understand him at all. He wanted to figure out why he and his parents have completely different reactions. When making Nier: Replicant, he found that many people do not buy games, but experience them by watching online game recording videos. Taro is not opposed to this behavior. “After all, this is the result of technological development. People will always find different ways of entertainment.” But for those players who have spent money to buy games, he hopes to give these people a different experience from video viewers. He believes that deleting archives can give players a unique experience that cannot be experienced in video clearance.

Taro claims, “In my opinion, a good ending means that each character can satisfy their desires. No matter how dark or evil the story or these characters are, or how twisted their wishes are. Even if this is not a good ending for you, for the players.”

The ending of the game written by Taro cannot be fulfilled. The player must make a choice in Nier: in order to save the life of the NPC, the player needs to sacrifice his own save data. It means the data will be deleted forever. The dozens of hours players put into this game, gone. Their chance to finish those quests they left undone, gone.

Taro says that he is a pessimist, and everyone who has played his works should not be surprised. However, maybe he is not so pessimistic. In his games, he integrates his thinking about life and death and he also explores the philosophy of human nature. Taro discussed the ending of Nier: Automata in his GDC speech. When the game production list rises, players need to make a path in the dense barrage. Most players will die in this process, and then they must choose whether to accept help from a stranger. Once you get through this part, the game will ask you if you are willing to sacrifice your save data to help other strangers, and this cycle will continue. It is a moving and hopeful link, which is different from the meanness and pessimism shown by Yoko Taro. “If I have a personal wish,” he said in the conversation, “I hope people who play this game can take a moment to think about a stranger from a faraway country.” In a whole game story, all are expounding the cruel fate of the game that lashes the darkness of human nature. Finally, players need to rely on each other’s sacrifices to crush the producer’s world, to prove the glory of human nature, and to ignite the flame of hope.

Citations:

Betty Deng

Future AI Algorithm – Making the Invisible Visible

Future Information Visualization

Irene Au