On Monday, April 27, the Weekly Famitsu official Twitter account dropped a teaser for this week’s up-coming issue of Famitsu magazine, which will feature 48 pages worth of NieR related goodness, including interviews with Yoko Taro and Saito Yosuke.

Additionally, according to Ryokutya, the issue will discuss these points about the new version of NieR Replicant (my personal comments in red):

• A considerable amount of work was put into this updated version of the game that it doesn’t really feel like a simple “remaster” but rather something more.
  This was already discussed during the March 29 NieR 10th Anniversary Livestream, in which they said that this will neither be a remaster nor a remake. For more on this, please read here.
• Since the camera movements are pretty similar during event scenes, the game feels more like a remaster even though we’ve implemented many modifications.
• All additional elements are brand-new, so we put a lot of effort into them.
• There were some things in the original game that may have felt a bit clunky or unrefined, so if people thought we ought to update those areas, we wanted to do so. We wanted to be sure that fans of Automata could enjoy playing this as well.
• Please look forward to hearing the voices of Ishikawa Yui (2B) and Hanae Natsuki (9S). We previously knew this from the March 29 NieR 10th Anniversary Livestream that the three main voice actors of 2B, 9S, and A2 will be returning in the new version of Replicant; however, they they will NOT be reprising their roles from Automata.

Additionally, here are some more Famitsu leaks about NieR Re[in]carnation from another Ryokutya post:

• The girl in the trailer is NOT Kaine. I thought that was pretty much a given, but people always want to believe what isn’t there…
• The ghost sort of character floating there is literally called “Mama”. It’s a sort of character that watches over the MC as a mother would.
• Yoko: There are more than one MC.
  Saito: There are lots of them.
  This suggests to me that we will be seeing the Original Accord here. Please take a look at what we were recently discussing about Accord here. Additional hints were given during the March 29 NieR 10th Anniversary Livestream, which I discussed here.

Famitsu just posted a couple preview images of their article on twitter! Check it out!

Please stay tuned for more news and info regarding this release in the coming days! In the meantime, here are a couple of preview videos for you to enjoy and help you stay up-to-date with all things in the Yokoverse!

There also seems to be a bit of misinformation going around regarding these leaks originally stated by Ryokutya. Like a game of telephone, the information seems to be going through several different journalists, each time losing more and more of the original intent or meaning.

The original leak started with Ryokutya, traveled to Game’s Talk, and then over to Twitter. The thing is, Ryokutya often adds his own personal comment at the end of his posts of leaked information, so for anyone unfamiliar with this, they could misinterpret his personal comments for actual leaked information.

Let’s break this down to eliminate any misunderstanding, starting with Ryokutya’s personal comment (not part of the official Famitsu leaks):

Taura wanted to keep the same action feel of the original (since he was a fan of the original), but Saito, Yoko, and the development company (Toylogic) seem intent on changing the feel considerably.

But if Taura’s going to check on the work, then I guess there’s noooooooooooooo need to worry.

The only thing left to worry about is maybe changes to the somewhat taboo aspects of the game… [Ryokutya]

Then Game’s Talk picked up this bit and wrote it like this:

PlatinumGames’ Taura Takahisa, who worked on the game design for NieR:Automata, will be cooperating on the development by supervising the game’s action.

Taura, a fan of the original game, didn’t want to change the feel of the original, but it is said that Saito, Yoko, and the development company, Toylogic, intend on changing it considerably. [Game’s Talk]

And then other folks on Twitter picked up the information and rolled with it:

https://twitter.com/StormYorha/status/1255253748538060800 (Removed)

The majority of this “new” information is actually a month old, as it was originally announced during the 10-hour NieR 10th Anniversary Livestream on March 29, which I covered here.

I do recall them discussing on the same program that Taura would be “helping” with the new version of Replicant, but exactly how much or what his actual role would be, working with Toylogic, was not discussed.

So, looking at how the information gradually changed the further down the grapevine it got, it’s clear that we need to stick with official sources and to be careful what gets passed around. Even if the overall statement is accurate, the slightest inaccuracy could be passed around and taken at face value.

Edit: April 30

The one line of dialogue that we saw spoken by Mama says, “Wow! Sand is pouring down! What’s going on here?” What’s interesting with this is that Mama clearly uses “feminine” speech. Of course, we don’t know anything about the character to know if Mama is actually a living being, a machine, or what… but this sort of speech is really difficult to get across when it’s translated into English.