Sometime after SQEX posted the first of five blog posts sharing more information on the NieR:Automata Black Box Edition, Yoko Taro posted something interesting on Twitter regarding the emblem printed on the front of the box.

ニーア限定版の箱は宣伝さんが拘ってくださいました。実はここにプリントされているエンブレムにもデザイナーさんの隠された意図がありますが、それは、またいつか…… https://t.co/dR3adb5FOO

— yokotaro (@yokotaro) October 21, 2016

So, that got me thinking some more and imagining what could be “hidden” in this design. When I first saw the emblem or glyph, I thought it resembled an eye that possibly has a tear streaming down from it. I also thought it resembled a lot like a blooming flower, reminiscent of the Flower entity from DOD3, and we all know that damn thing could still be lurking out there somewhere, clinging onto dear life.

Another thing I wondered about was whether or not this particular design was borrowed from or maybe merged some of the glyphs from the previous games. So for that purpose, let’s take another look at the main glyphs.

Here, we can see that Zero’s glyph was clearly made in retrospect to resemble Caim’s own: a blossoming flower with Caim’s dragon-esque glyph emerging from within. As for the other Utautai glyphs from DOD3, they all have a uniform circular structor to the design with varying aspects setting them apart from each other. The one the intrigues me the most in relation to the new NieR:Automata glyph is One’s. It shares almost the same, exact spikes as Nowe’s glyph with a total of 6 protruding “wing” spikes (Nowe’s seems to have an additional 3 on the “tail”).

I also thought that, overall, the emblem resembled the flower “dash” that was used in the DOD3 logo, as seen above. If you rotate the image 90 degrees to the right and imagine an eye sprouting from the center of the flower, I think that depicts the basics of the design.

This particular head-on look of an eye reminded me of the graphics from DOD3 that represented each Utautai:

Stepping a little further from the graphical design, there are 5 prongs at the top of the “eye” to create apparent eye lashes. The number 5… there were 5 additional Utautai born from the flower due to Zero’s offensive action.

Oh, and the YoRHa Bunker also displays a nice emblem, too:

This glyph also shares the same five prongs that appear in the “eye” glyph above, but this one has three swords, standing tall and straight. I don’t have anything much to say on this yet, but… the number three brings to mind the original 3 YoRHa from the beginning days of the YoRHa endeavor in connection with MONACA and DearStage. It was these three vocalists that sang the boss battle themes on the DOD3 soundtrack. You can find more information on this here.

So what do you think? Could this be a clue that actively connects both game series? We know they exist in the same world at different points in the overall timeline, but… could they be more entangled than that? More related in each other’s future–and past–than we were initially lead to believe?

Or is it all yet more smoke and mirrors…?