Square Enix announces "Nier: Cosmic Horror" on April 1, chaos ensues, Yoko Taro last seen wishing he had cilantro for his pho noodles

As April 1 arrived in Japan, Square Enix unleashed chaos by tweeting out the announcement of something called "Nier: Cosmic Horror." Given the date, you've got good reason to believe this announcement is some kind of prank, and a drip of desperation is taking hold in the Nier fandom. Meanwhile, series lead Yoko Taro is living his best life, eating pho and FaceTiming with Grammy Award-winning artist, The Weeknd.

"NieR New Project Production Confirmed," according to a machine translated version of Square Enix's tweet, which was posted at precisely midnight Japan time on April 1. "Born in nothingness, is it hope?" the translated post continues. "Or is it despair in the name of salvation?"

Whether it represents hope or despair, the tweet includes a brief video clip featuring a robotic creature with – characteristic for the series – a very round butt. Oh, and also it has some sort of horrible tentacle appendage for a head. In the background, there's the looming visage of the Emil mask that Yoko Taro wears in public. A title card gives the name of this project as "Nier: Cosmic Horror."

My instinct is, of course, to simply dismiss this as an April Fools' Day joke, the first reminder of the season to not trust anything I see on the internet. But then… What's the joke? A cruel prank, getting fans' collective hope up for a horror-themed Nier follow-up, only to rip it away? Even for a series so well known for playing mean tricks on its players, that seems a step too far.

Those points are pretty much what you'll see in comments from hardcore Nier fans, both on Twitter and Reddit. "hey, nier was created from the joke ending of drakengard," as one user puts it. "Ima huff my copium and believe"

"On one hand, April Fools," another poster says. "On the other hand, announcing a new game on April Fools is exactly the kind of shit Yoko Taro would do…"

And what of Yoko Taro? Where is the man behind Nier in all of this? Well, apparently he's been on FaceTime with The Weeknd, according to an Instagram post from the pop artist. The Weeknd's apparently become quite a fan of Nier in recent days, according to all the pictures he's shared of his Automata playthrough.

Meanwhile, Yoko Taro himself is simply tweeting about dinner. "They were selling bagged pho noodles, so I topped them with chicken breast and greens and ate it," he says in a machine translated tweet. "It was a shame they didn’t have cilantro, but squeezing some lime over it made it turn out pretty darn good, and I was satisfied."

Nier Automata "to be continued," Square Enix says, giving stunned fans some hope as the Yoko Taro-led JRPG flies past 10 million copies sold.