Yoko Taro says he made NieR: Automata the way he wanted, without a specific target audience from Square Enix.
“I just made what I wanted to, and I tried to stay hidden from Square Enix as much as possible.”
That clearly worked. NieR: Automata became a huge success, selling over 10 million copies and bringing the series to a much wider audience.
Taro also says he sees his games as pretty normal, despite their reputation for being strange:
“I think I am making normal games targeted towards normal people.”