In 2014, game designer Yoko Taro gave a talk about the creative process behind his cult PlayStation 3 title Nier: Replicant. He called the talk "Weird Games for Weird People". That is the best possible description of what he makes. Taro is famous for the eccentric persona he presents to the world. He rarely shows his face in public or interviews, preferring to talk from behind a sock puppet or the eerie wide grin of a mask.

Taro Yoko, director of NieR: Automata, leans forward in his chair. "The stories I write really aren't very good at all," he says, through a translator. So I wouldn't have great expectations for the game if I were you." I've just spent a few hours playing a preview build in London, and it was anything but crap. The story follows a pair of combat androids who are fighting on humanity's behalf. They talk about life and death, and what it means to be caught up in a never-ending cycle of war. The Japanese game designer is, perhaps, trying to temper expectations. Two years ago, no one would have guessed that a new NieR was in development. The first title was a commercial flop, and Square Enix, the game's publisher, had shown no interest in a sequel. NieR was a strange experience, extending the story of the original, equally bizarre Drakengard game from the PlayStation 2 era. It starts in the distant future, in a bleak, snow-covered Tokyo. The adventure then cuts to more than 1,000 years later, where humanity has reverted to swords and rudimentary houses once more. Even stranger, the same characters depicted in the "modern" prologue seem to be living in this new, fantastical world. "Square Enix came to me and said, 'Well, it didn't sell very well.

Platinum's Xbox exclusive has been cancelled by Microsoft, killing the dream of a Devil May Cry meets Last Guardian mashup. I saw the game behind closed doors on two separate occasions, and was left positively smitten with the concept. It centered on Drew, an arrogant, headphone loving twenty-something lost in a world filled with dragons. With Thuban, an eventual friend and fire-breathing combat partner, he would scour floating islands and decimate mythical enemies large and small. Throughout the game you would control them both, slashing as Drew and throwing out commands to Thuban.