Platinum handling bulk of Nier 2’s development duties

While still officially a joint project with Square Enix, the RPG sequel to Nier is being developed almost entirely in-house at Platinum Games.

"Yes, the development is mostly taking place here at Platinum [in Osaka], and in our Tokyo office," designer Yasuhisa Taura told GameSpot. "But we are of course getting help from Square Enix, and the composer for the original game is back to make new music. Also, the character design is being done by Akihiko Yoshida who works on CyDesignation, so we are borrowing people from other companies.

But the majority of development is being done here."

Platinum certainly has a lot on its plate. Having recently shipped licensed action title Transformers: Devastation, it is also working on Nintendo duo Star Fox Zero and Project Guard, as well as Xbox One exclusive Scalebound.

Taura also told GameSpot about the origins of the in-development Nier sequel.

"I was thinking of creating something new and I’m a really big fan of the original Nier," he added. "I was creating a video game proposal that was something along the lines of a sequel to Nier.

Right around the time I was doing this, Square Enix actually came to us to ask if we wanted to do something with them, some kind of project. They didn’t mention Nier specifically, but they said they wanted to do something with us. So we said, ‘Okay, we have an idea for a Nier sequel, so let’s do that.’ And that’s how it happened."