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is a Japanese [[video game]] director and [[scenario writer]]. Starting his career at the now defunct game developer Cavia, his best-known work is on the action role-playing video game series ''[[Drakengard]]'', and its spin-offs, ''Nier'' and ''[[Nier: Automata]]''. Yoko was born in [[Nagoya]], [[Aichi]], and studied at the Kobe Design University in the 1990s. While he did not initially intend to pursue a career in video games, after working at Namco and Sony, he joined Cavia and became the director and scenario writer for the first ''Drakengard'' game. He has since worked extensively on every game in the series (except ''Drakengard 2''), and on mobile titles after becoming a freelancer following Cavia's absorption into [[AQ Interactive]].
Critics have noted Yoko's unconventional game design and writing style. One of the main aspects of his work is exploring the darker aspects of humanity, such as why they are motivated to kill each other, although he typically does not share a common opinion on his story's dark natures. His writing technique, described as "backwards scriptwriting", involves outlining the ending of the story first and building the narrative backward from that point. Due to his disdain for being photographed, he generally wears a mask when giving interviews or presenting games.
After Drakengard 2 was completed, Yoko started work on a third entry in the series. As the game developed, the initial concept was developed to the point where the game was rebranded as Nier, a spin-off from the series. Despite this, Yoko continued to consider it the third entry in the series. After Nier was released and Cavia was absorbed into AQ Interactive, Yoko left the company and pursued an independent career. During this period, he took an unknown role in the development of Square Enix's social game Monster × Dragon. The majority of his freelancer work involved social mobile games. Many years later, Yoko teamed back up with multiple staff from the production of Drakengard and Nier to create a true second sequel to Drakengard, determining through questionnaires that the main appeal to the fanbase was the dark stories. After the completion of Drakengard 3, Yoko "went back into unemployment". After that, he began writing a short-term special column for Famitsu titled "Taro Yoko's Circle of No Good Thinking". In 2015, Yoko announced that he had started his own company called Bukkoro, staffed by Yoko, his wife Yukiko, and Hana Kikuchi, novelist and scenario writer for Nier and Drakengard 3. His other works include the 2023 anime television series based on titled , co-writing the script with the anime's director Ryouji Masuyama.
Yoko has stated his intense dislike of interviews. His reason, according to his Famitsu column, was that he feels video game developers are not entertainers or commentators on their work and that he thinks the subjects they talk about in interviews would be overly boring to those reading or listening. When he does give interviews, he prefers to wear a mask to avoid being photographed, and in a video interview concerning Drakengard 3, he used a Glove puppetry. He has also stated that he likes to be blunt when stating his opinions, as he feels that video game fans deserve truth and honesty.
Yoko was influenced in his style for the Drakengard series by many games of the day: a commonality he noted was that the player got gradings for their performance after killing dozens or hundreds of enemy units in a "gloating" manner. Because the concept of enjoying killing seemed insane to him, he designed the first game's main protagonists to be insane. He also wished to explore what drove people to kill each other. Later, for Nier and Drakengard 3, Yoko explored the idea of a terrible event where both sides believed they were doing the right thing. For Nier, he took direct inspiration from the September 11 attacks and the War on Terror. Another direct influence on Nier was of the gameplay of the God of War series, which both he and the game's producer Yosuke Saito admired. He has stated his dislike for the "plain and forgettable" type of female video game character: he demonstrated his dislike for this and the stereotypical role-playing video game romance in Furiae, an important character in Drakengard. Another character he has been greatly involved in creating is Zero, Drakengard 3s protagonist: while creating her, he felt it would be interesting to create a character who was formerly a prostitute as it was a character type that was fairly rare in video games. In general, Yoko does not consider his writing to be as dark as others see it, while admitting that he deliberately incorporates dark elements. A notable influence on the gameplay of his titles was the classic shoot 'em up Ikaruga; it directly inspired the dragon flight sequences of Drakengard and bullet hell sections in Nier; and informed Yoko on the synchronization of gameplay with the music. A biography of him drawn Kenji Yoshida and based on Yoko Taro's own words was released in the Game Creators of Biography web manga series, under the title "ヨコオタロウ編" ( "Yokoo Tarō-hen"). It was published by Cygames on its Cycomi platform, starting from February 21, 2021.
| 1996 | Alpine Racer 2 | Background designer |
| 1998 | Time Crisis II | |
| 2000 | Chase the Express | Planner |
| 2001 | Phase Paradox | Game designer, visual design |
| 2003 | Drakengard | Director, scenario writer |
| 2005 | Drakengard 2 | Video editor |
| 2010 | Nier | Director, scenario writer |
| 2011 | Monster × Dragon | Scenario supervisor |
| 2012 | Demons' Score | Support planner |
| 2013 | Drakengard 3 | Creative director, scenario writer |
| 2017 | Director, scenario writer | |
| SINoALICE | Creative director | |
| 2019 | YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse scenario writer | |
| 2021 | Nier Reincarnation | Creative director, scenario writer |
| Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139... | ||
| 2022 | ||
| 2023 | 404 Game Re:set |
| + !Year !Title !class="unsortable" | Role | |
| 2023 | Creator, writer | |
| KamiErabi God.app | Creator, planner |
| 2023 | "Antinomy" | Amazarashi | Writer | Ending theme of |
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