Leave it to Yoko Taro to make us smile. In the latest issue of Game Informer, we chatted with the Nier mastermind, looking back at the original game and forward to the updated version, coming out in just a few weeks on April 23. We knew we couldn’t end the interview without asking him a few questions about Nier Replicant’s longwinded, mouthful of a title. Does it have a special meaning? Is he just trolling us? What is the real story behind the convoluted number sequence in Replicant ver. 1.22474487139? He answered in true Yoko Taro fashion, making us laugh. 

“To be honest, I did not want to put numbers on it,” he said. “I wanted it to be Nier Replicant but Yosuke Saito, producer of the game, really wanted to express that this is an updated version. So I was thinking, ‘Okay, this is an updated version, but we also don’t want this to be referred to as a remaster. So it’s not a version two, neither is it a remake, but it’s not quite 1.55. Okay, let’s pare it down a little more, maybe, it’s 1.22.’ That was the thinking behind it. As far as whether or not I can memorize the number – no, I have not, and I’ve been calling it ‘the updated version’ all the time.”

There you have it. This is why Yoko Taro is a treasure. 

Curious for more of Taro’s thoughts? You can read the entire Nier feature in our latest issue, where he details his apprehension about releasing a new version of the game after all this time and discusses his original idea for Nier that producer Yosuke Saito said wasn’t “unusual enough.” You can access the issue digitally here. 

For more on Nier Replicant, you can check out our hands-on impressions from a veteran and newcomer here. You can also listen to us share our thoughts on a recent podcast.