Earlier this week, the official Twitter for the NieR Automata Ver1.1a anime adaptation announced that due to COVID-19, the production will be put on hold. While this has happened previously with other anime in the past, there leaves speculation on the validity.
Fumio Kishida, the current Prime Minister of Japan recently indicted plans to lower the categorical threat of COVID-19 to the common flu. So this begs the question, Is it really COVID? Of course, this doesn't negate that fact that COVID-19 exists as an illness and that it shouldn't be treated seriously; and it is possible for a whole studio to become sick at once, given how quickly the virus spreads. But hopefully this is indeed a bluff, and not an actual instance of a mass COVID infection. It's no fun being sick. Besides, Yoko Taro is known for messing with your mind, after all.
The "Announcement"
First let's take a look at the announcement itself, see anything familiar? If you're not familiar with Japanese, the bottom is signed, "The Council of Humanity". Now this could just be a fun reference, but taking into account Japan's current response to COVID and the setting of NieR Automata, perhaps this could be implications of something else. Additionally, Yoko Taro retweeted the initial announcement with, 「そして実は４話以降は、例のアレがアレしたせいで、しばらく先になってしまうそうです……」, meaning, "It seems it will be a while until the 4th episode, because of that thing....". What is that "thing", exactly? And if it's not COVID, this wouldn't be the first time he's tricked the audience with a vague message, and shocked them with a reveal.
One observation we should make, is that in the original game, the leader of The Resistance is Anemone, but this time, it's Lily. Anemone is nowhere to be found, either. Something may have happened in the past to cause this change - and users are theorizing this could be one of Accord's timelines that she visits.
The World Beyond NieR
For those unfamiliar with Accord, she's a time and dimension traveling android, responsible for observing every and all outcomes in the universe. She is first encountered in Drakengard 3 and is implied to have visited Nier's younger sister, Yonah during her travels. Another point worth mentioning is how the NieR universe takes inspiration from real world events. NieR Replicant's plot was inspired by the events of 9/11, for example. Perhaps a similar thing is happening in NieR Automata's adaptation. But this time, it's COVID-19.
Yoko Taro's works have always had underlying messages and themes of the human experience, let alone society itself. As seen with NieR Re[in]carnation, most of the stories are told through two separate perspectives - and more often than not, the lack of communication and empathy leads to tragedy. The most recent divide humanity has had with itself is the topic of COVID-19. World leaders, the media, peers, the internet all play a contributing factor to the divide. But thinking logically, there doesn't need to be. Yet everyone is convinced that their perspective is the correct one, that their actions are just. And what is happening in the anime so far? Othering. The machines have begun to embrace humanistic principles, but YoRHa sticks to the "us vs them" rhetoric.
Humanity's Fate
From the beginning, both YoRHa and the viewer are told that the remainder of humanity fled to the moon. Veteran gamers will know that's not true, as they've long since been extinct. Perhaps in this different timeline, it wasn't the failure of the Gestalt project that killed off humanity, but COVID-19? After all, the whole story of NieR started because of an illness that plagued humanity.
This could very well be a real-world message, but we won't know until January 28th, when a "rerun" of episode 1 is scheduled. But is it a "true" rerun, or is it going to be a different "episode 1"?