According to an interview by A9VG, we’ve learned a couple new things regarding the game and what’s in store for us…

Please note that I’m going from a very round-about way to translate this. I know *nothing* of Chinese but I do understand Japanese. I used an online translation site to first translate this into Japanese and then I attempted to translate that into English. ^^;

First of all, the Chinese version of the game has been confirmed for this spring.

—Will there be any changes from the demo leading into the actual release of the game?
Saito: We released the demo version with the intention of gaining some important feedback from players. The main purpose was to allow players to experience the action part of the game and let them tell us what they thought.

—In the Hard and Very Hard modes, the player is not able to use the lock-on function. Will this still be true for the official release of the game?
Saito: Yes, the lock-on function is not accessible in the harder difficulty levels, but in Normal and Easy modes, the player can select whether or not they want to use this function.

—In the demo, we’re only able to explore the area on foot. Will there be other modes of transportation in the official release?
Saito: In the official version there will be aerial vehicles and also animals that you can ride on.

—In the demo, we could see that weapons have their own stories with illustrations. Will the official release have more of this, additional illustrations, for example?
Saito: As you level up your weapons, you can gradually unlock additional portions of the Weapon Stories. The background image that’s used for the Weapon Stories won’t change, but the actual appearance of the weapons will.

—Ishikawa-san, do you have any interesting stories for us?
Ishikawa: Perhaps when I started working on this game. At the time, even the character designs were not yet complete. Since the dubbing was done along with the development of the game, I could really get an inside look on its production.

—What significance does the content in the demo have to do with the official release?
Saito: In Japan, it was discussed whether or not the demo depicted the ending of the game. We can reveal here that what you see in the demo occurs roughly at the half-way point of the game. We selected that part so you can get a nice chunk of the game to experience. The story in the demo is not an independent story from the rest of the game.

—Ishikawa-san, how do you feel about your role as 2B?
Ishikawa: There are so many emotional moments in the story. As for 2B, she isn’t allowed to express her own feelings. Although she doesn’t sound like it, I think she’s a really gentle person. She’s also very concerned about 9S.

—What can we expect from the PRO?
Saito: We initially discussed using 4K with the PRO, but as an action game, we needed to be sure we had at least 1080p/60fps. So, the movement in the PRO version should feel more fluid with better lighting and shadows.

—How many different characters can we expect to play?
Saito: Right now we can confirm that 2B and 9S will be playable.

—We know there’s a connection between NieR and the Drakengard series. Should people play the previous games to prepare for this one?
Saito: There is a connection between them all, but there’s absolutely no problem if you haven’t played them. Simply, if you are familiar with the other titles, you may notice some interesting things. For example, the voice actor for 9S, Hanae-san, has played all of the previous games.

Source: A9VG

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According to other Japanese-Chinese translations, not just mine, it appears as though the events that we see in the demo may not actually take place at the *beginning* of the game, but rather a bit further in. It’s described as the “mid-way” point or half-way through the game, but the DOD/NieR series always use multiple playthroughs… so perhaps this could be towards the end of the first run through, “Branch A”.

There are several points that create confusion with this statement, one is my own translation of some of the storyboards and scripts from the Character Introduction video that was originally shown at the NieR Music Concert & Talk Live. Plus, it appears as though 2B and 9S had never met–so would that mean that 2B is alone for the whole first playthrough? Or perhaps there’s an entirely different story gimmick in play that we have no clue about yet?

We don’t have much to go on here, so it may be better to give our brains a rest and just wait until the game is finally released. We’ve only got a month left to go here in Japan… <3