Of all the franchises I expected to be a hit, I have to be honest, I really didn’t see NieR coming. But the breakout success of NieR Automata seems to have solidified its place as quite the little franchise. People are going to get a chance to revisit the past though in the recently announced remake of the first game, NieR Replicant. We now have some new information about the game, and it sounds like a lot of work is going into it.
In the latest issue of Famitsu magazine, series Director Yoko Taro talked about the upcoming “version up” of the cult classic. He says that the gameplay will be reworked to be closer to what Automata fans would find familiar, and fans of Automata will also like to hear that PlatinumGames staff is involved in this though it’s unclear how significant their role is as Taro doesn’t explicitly name them as the developers. He goes on to say this will be more than a simple remaster and will include new characters and hints there could also be a new ending. The voice actors for 9S and 2B are also involved in some capacity.
As far as the familiar, he seems to confirm that the original voice actors will return, though they will re-record their lines (since this is a Japanese magazine, it’s unclear if he means this for all localizations as well). He also says the camera work will remain the same, but it’s unclear exactly what is being referred to (big thanks to Twitter user Storm Yorha for transcribing and translation work; you can see that below).
NieR Replicant will release for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.