Two unused test models found within the game's data are original models of Neo from The Matrix, and what appears to be Monā, a popular cat character originating from Shift JIS ASCII art commonly posted on the Japanese textboard 2channel.

Ending B,Spoiler: which features Caim's sister transforming into multiple creatures, is based on Sister Princess, a series which featured 12 sisters competing for their older brother's attention.

As Takuya Iwasaki supervised both Drakengard and Ace Combat 3, both games were given working titles Dragonsphere and Electrosphere respectively.

Yoko Taro's original idea for the final boss was to have the Queen-beast take the form of J-Pop Artist, Ayumi Hamasaki, and challenge the player to a singing contest. This idea was unanimously shot down by his team.

The original idea Yoko, Iwasaki and Shiba had for the game was an Ace Combat inspired flight simulator based on riding a dragon. Much of the game's combat was originally inspired by Dynasty Warriors 2, which was popular at the time.

When the game got released in PAL regions, major debugging and adjustments were made to the camera controls.

The music in this game was composed by Nobuyoshi Sano and Takayuki Aihara, who used rearranged and remixed samples from classical songs to create the soundtrack. Their main objective was to create music that emulated the gameplay, as well as the story and general narrative theme of "madness". The music was intended to be "experimental" and "expressionistic", rather than "commercial".

The setting, mythos and landscape were primarily inspired by the folklore of Northern Europe, while other elements drew from Japanese-style revisionism. According to Shiba, multiple elements of the story and world were created to be dark, sad and serious in tone, in contrast to the likes of Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy.

In the final Ending E of the Japanese version, One of the jet pilots is refereed to as Scarface. Which is a name usually associated with the protagonists of Ace Combat.

The game's battle scenes were inspired by films such as The Mummy and its spin-off The Scorpion King, as well as films like Dragonheart and Asian epic films.

According to Taro Yoko, Leonard is roughly based off of Slegger Law from Mobile Suit Gundam.

Caim's design was loosely based on Guts from Berserk. The weapon Hymir's Finer/Broken Iron is also a reference to Guts' weapon, Dragonslayer.

Furiae was originally conceptualized to be blonde and was going to be a more hidden figure throughout the story. The development team had claimed that she was only made for Caim and Inuart's rivalry, and her personality is roughly modeled after Rei Ayanami from Neon Genesis Evangelion. Taro Yoko had stated she is his take on the sisters from the Sister Princess series.

Both Caim and Seere's names come from the 53rd and 70th demons from the Lesser Key of Solomon, a mid-seveteenth century grimoire on Demonology.

Even though the Swordsmasher's magic attack, Pale Death, turns the wielder invisible, the enemy AI will still attack the player regardless.

The final ending is titled Spoiler:"The End of the Dragon Sphere". This is likely a reference to Drakengard's project name "Project Dragonsphere" or to The End of Evangelion, with the Spoiler:Queen-beast's death in the game strongly resembling Lilith's death scene in the anime.

Taro Yoko had originally wanted the Red Dragon and Caim's relationship to be similar to a parasitic one, with the Dragon as being the "host". However, he admits he had no real hand in planning the main story fans are familiar with and feels odd calling Red the "true heroine" of the first game. Because of this, he could not relate to the popularity of the romantic relationship. In a write-in question for Dengeki Online's Drakengard 3 character popularity questionnaire, A personal question from Yoko appears, asking fans to explain the popularity of Caim and the Red Dragon's pairing to him.

In the original Japanese release, the game contained themes surrounding the subjects of incest, cannibalism and pedophilia. These were either removed entirely or heavily downplayed when the title was brought over to the western market.

A mobile port of the game was developed by Macrospace as part of a collaboration between Square Enix and Vodafone, designed to function on the Vodafone live! It was only released in Europe.

Character designer, Kimihiko Fujisaka, has said in a Famitsu interview that he was embarrassed to see his designs from ten years ago and especially regretted Caim's design. When he redrew Caim for Lord of Vermillon, Fujisaka's main goal for his outfit was to do something which was impossible for the team to render during Drakengard's development.