Adventurers were treated to a big surprise with the reveal of a NieR: Automata collaboration Alliance Raid at the Final Fantasy XIV Paris Fan Festival. Director and producer Naoki Yoshida answered a few questions regarding the collaboration.

Here are some quotes from Naoki Yoshida about the collaboration and how it all came to be:

A NieR: Automata Alliance Raid collaboration was announced, but how did you guys decide on having NieR for the Alliance Raid?

Naoki Yoshida, Director & Producer: “There’s been a lot of voices from around the world clamoring for costumes of characters that appear in NieR, and they’ve been saying ‘please do a collaboration with NieR’ from the very beginning. I previously talked about there being no end to MMOs, but at the same time change is important, and if you keep on creating with the same staff and designers it starts becoming a similar pattern. However, it is too risky to completely change the system itself. So the way I see it is that if we invite a creator who thinks differently from me—if we create a game together, then we can create a new kind of game experience that I wouldn’t have been able to on my own. That’s something we’d like to offer uniquely through Final Fantasy XIV’s raid dungeons called Alliance Raids.

This time around, I previously spoke with producer Saito (Yosuke Saito) who approached me around the time of NieR’s release. While Final Fantasy XIV’s plans are made way in advance, a collaboration with NieR would have some impact, so we had some drinks and discussed about ‘rather than doing a half-baked collaboration, wouldn’t it be more fun to make something that could surprise everyone in the world?’ Now that I think about it, it feels like all surprising moments go hand in hand with alcohol [laughs].”

Will you be calling guest creators for Final Fantasy XIV again? Are there any collaborations you’d like to do?

Naoki Yoshida: “I don’t know. We haven’t started anything yet, so there’s not much I can say. Wait, I have to talk about several years down the road? [laughs] We’re not even sure whether we’ll keep doing Alliance Raids with guest creators. It wouldn’t be that fun if it ends up becoming the same old pattern. We have to think of different ways to surprise you guys. I want to make it as unexpected as possible, so just wonder about all the possibilities that can happen for now.”

The previous Alliance Raid “Return to Ivalice” was set in an alternate world, but with the NieR Alliance Raid announced, what kind of world or setting will it have? Will it be set in the world of NieR?

Naoki Yoshida: “At the very least, you’ll have something called the ‘YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse’ in the world of Final Fantasy XIV, so we’re making sure it fits naturally into Final Fantasy XIV. As for what happens when the two worlds crossover, I hope you get to see it for yourself. The rest depends on what Yoko-san writes. The three of us including Saito-san, Yoko-san, and myself are planning on getting together to talk things through, so please look forward to it.”

Final Fantasy XIV is available on PlayStation 4 and PC. NieR: Automata is available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. In case you missed it, Naoki Yoshida talked about what kind of Final Fantasy game he’d like to see next, which you can read about in our previous report.