Nier Automata was nearly a Farmville game, says series producer

Nier: Automata is coming out very soon, but before it was the melee combat/bullet hell mashup made by Platinum, it was very nearly a Farmville-esque mobile title. Quite the jump for fans of the cult platformer.

This fact-bomb was dropped in an interview with Yosuke Saito, a Square Enix producer, during an interview with Eurogamer. The collaboration nearly came about when the team were kicking around the idea of making a Nier mobile game. The vision belonged to series creator Yoko Taro, although Saito did admit: "We’re very glad we didn’t go down that route,

Luckily for fans, Saito says the Team then got speaking to Platinum Games about a remake of Nier for the PlayStation Vita and this ended up growing into its own sequel for the PS4 and PC.

You can read the full interview over here on Eurogamer, with several insights on Nier: Automata’s development, none quite so impressive as the concept of Nierville, but worth reading nonetheless.