NieR: Automata director Yoko Taro is one of the most enigmatic individuals in the gaming industry, so it’s only natural that his scheduled speaking appearances tend to draw huge crowds. His latest appearance as host of his own panel at GDC featured the mask-wearing director talking about the massively popular NieR: Automata, where he revealed that he drew some inspiration from, of all things, a Coca Cola ad campaign.

After the true ending of NieR: Automata, players that made it that far are encouraged to leave behind messages to other players cheering them on. Said messages appear while players are fighting their way through Ending E, and the messages appear in different languages, showing which country they come from. “The truth is, this genius idea is not mine,” Yoko Taro said through a translator at the panel. “I stole this one too. It’s from a campaign called the Coca Cola Small World Machine.This is a campaign that Coca Cola deployed between two countries that are on bad terms. It’s a story between how can people still get along, even though they may have disagreements on their countries, situations, and societies. It is something that I was very deeply inspired and influenced by.”

The Coca Cola ad campaign originally ran several years ago in both India and Pakistan, in which a video feed built into Coca Cola machines allowed people from both countries to interact and play games with each other. “That project left an extremely strong impression on me,” Taro said.

You don’t have to look very hard in real world society to see that it’s overflowing with hatred. We’re capable of easily detesting people that we have never met or seen or heard of before, and I was really impressed by this project and what it was trying to do. So just like what Coca Cola did, I wanted to use this final message in NieR: Automata, this screen you see here, to communicate something by having people share messages with people from other countries that they have not-so-great relationships with. I wanted them to realize that the person they’re directing hatred towards is also, just like themselves, a gamer.”

The NieR: Automata director had to give up on doing the same thing Coca Cola did, though, as he felt as if it would mean “imposing my own principles onto others.” The dev team instead decided to have the messages be presented from a random assortment of countries. In a game that takes a deep look into the meaning of humanity, Taro’s special ending credits sequence acts as a capstone on an already stellar and thoughtful experience.

NieR: Automata is now available on PC and PlayStation 4.

So, thoughts on the interesting homage to the Coca Cola ad from the NieR: Automata director? What would you like to see in a sequel to the game? Let us know in the comments section below, and as always, stay tuned to Don’t Feed the Gamers for all the latest gaming and entertainment news! Don’t forget to follow DFTG on Twitter for our 24/7 news feed!