Yoko Taro and Keisuke Okabe Talk Stress-Driven Design at The Tenth Mosaic
Yoko Taro, director of NieR:Automata, and Keisuke Okabe, director of ENDER LILIES and ENDER MAGNOLIA, held a one-hour talk session at The Tenth Mosaic, a game culture event at the Institut francais de Tokyo in Tokyo on September 22 and 23, 2026. Taro served as MC and drew out Okabe on the making of the ENDER series. Okabe described a method he calls "stress-driven development": when envy of a strong game sets in, he plays a Steam title with Mixed user reviews to rebuild his confidence, then studies its missteps for his own work. He said he picks such games when the store page pitch reads well but the ratings do not. Taro said he never feels envy and described his own role as filling gaps no one else has covered.