One game many thought was in with a chance to be shown at Nintendo's E3 Direct this year was Bayonetta 3.
Hours before the live stream, the game's director Hideki Kamiya retweeted a post by Nintendo and shared an image of a Bayonetta Nendoroid - leading many fans to believe they would be hearing (and perhaps even seeing) the next anticipated entry in the series at the event.
Instead, the PlatinumGames announcement of the broadcast turned out to be a DLC update for The Wonderful 101. Kamiya has since been on the receiving end of some angry messages for not delivering, and well now, a lot of fans are left wondering what's going on with the third entry in the series.
As highlighted above, Bayonetta 3 was announced all the way back in December 2017 at The Game Awards, and now The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sequel (a game announced in 2019) looks like it will arrive first.
Apart from The Wonderful 101 DLC, earlier this week during Square Enix's E3 broadcast, Platinum's upcoming game Babylon's Fall got a new trailer - so it's clearly busy with that, too. PlatinumGames' co-founder Atsushi Inaba has also previously mentioned how the developer doesn't have much say over projects it's not publishing - potentially pushing the blame onto Nintendo.
"We don’t have that much say over projects that we’re not publishing. And we understand different titles require different approaches, so we respect the publisher’s decisions."
Meanwhile, Hideki keeps saying it's going fine and an update will happen when it happens. So, what do you think has happened to Bayonetta 3? We're curious to know - when do you think we'll learn more about this anticipated release? Vote in our poll and leave a comment down below.
Comments 52
you gotta have patience people. it will show up when Nintendo is ready.
We've been filming our dance-off. Sorry for the delay!
Considering they're developing Babylon's Fall, were doing Astral Chain before, self-published and developed the Wonderful 101 remaster and were involved as consultants on the NiER Replicant remaster I'm honestly not surprised it's taking this long. There was also that new game they made for Apple Arcade as well
Also as an Atlus fan I'm used to waiting long periods for things I want, case in point today
“Bro, we said development is going well! What more do you want?”😂
I will be surprised if we see it come to fruition in 2022. Everything about and around it kinda gives me the impression that they don't know what to do with it and that they haven't found or put together anything that makes them go "Yes! This is the right thing for it to be!"
They've definitely been doing things and have a lot of irons in the fire, but just about everything else from them can be more experimental and/or rougher. But Bayonetta has this flagship level of importance and expectation on it. So I really wouldn't be surprised if ideas and things they floated for Bayonetta 3 were rejected, but held onto and moved over to other games.
Bayonetta 3 traded places with Metroid Dread.
Next update should be in about a decade or two.
Q: "What's Happened To Bayonetta 3, Platinum?"
A: "It's progressing smoothly."
it never existed
I honestly only want them to finish Bayonetta so they can start on Astral Chains 2.
It'll be ready when it's ready. Patience, grasshopper.
What's a Bayonetta 3?
This is why I’m glad Nintendo has stopped announcing games that are years away from release (Metroid Prime 4 being the obvious exception).
I think Bayonetta 3 will shift to the next console.
Guys give them time, they're busy making trash (Babylon's Fall).
I feel like we’ll get a lot of sequels next year along with the Super Nintendo Switch. The instant I saw another cloud game announced I knew we wouldn’t see an updated switch.
They did give us an update ...
They told us not to expect any news about the project for a while. Like 3 months ago. They also specifically said their would be no new info at E3.
If you are ever wondering why developers and publishers are not open with fans, don't do interviews, and generally don't give a crap what we think, this is why. The game media only cares about clicks and would rather post 14 diffident "what's happened!!!" headlines then remind us of the freaking press release the company already made.
@tntswitchfan68 I would put this more on Nintendo and Platinum than I would on the fans. It's almost been 4 years since they decided to announce the game and show us a "trailer". That's incredibly poor planning on their part to show something that early if they didn't have any expectations to show it again this long after it's initial reveal.
Platinum has other things to do too
Need a robot chicken skit right about now. Let the devs work.
The year is 2025 and Bayonetta 3 still has no release date.
The D team is working on Babylons Fall so I wouldn't worry about that.
My guess is they ran into some kind of major technical or design hiccup that set them back in development.
I've never seen anything like this before...
I think Platinum perhaps bites off more than they can chew in terms of how many projects they have going, but regardless, I believe it was just announced way before it should have been and there isn't much point on speculating beyond that because there's just no way of knowing if they aren't saying.
I certainly hope it resurfaces at some point as a nice surprise.
Not seeing this or even hearing anything about it, made me so mad, I became sad.
This bummed me out more than the fabled Switch Pro. These were the only two things missing from the show. I knew I wasn’t gonna get MP4, but I thought for sure Bayonetta and maybe a new Switch model. Dammit…
I'm wondering if they only started production on it around the time Astral Chain was finishing up.
@Realness You never would have seen a Pro at this event...remember the Switch Lite got an announcement about a month AFTER e3 2019. So I'm thinking this...we will see a reveal next month late for this year or a reveal in the fall for next year (like they did with the original Switch).
@Dang69 That all sounds good. But at this point, what you’re suggesting, is still only a definite maybe.
@Realness Here's a bright side to it all, with all crap that went down with the Metroid Dread CE and amiibo....maybe it's a good thing orders for a Pro didn't go live. None of us would have EVEN been able to buy one.
I’m sure it will get here eventually, I think they announced it too soon but I ain’t mad them.
it's probably been pushed to launch with Switch Pro to drive hardware sales. probably will be shown when the Pro date gets finalized.
I'm honestly not as pressed on a timeframe as I am that we found out about it almost 4 years ago and don't know -anything- about it outside of the fact(if we can even call it fact at this point) that it exists. That's what is strange.
I'm thinking about next year we'll see some news
Idk why but Babylon Falls reminds me of Pandora's Tower on Wii. I hope the Switch gets more original games not in an established franchise. I really enjoyed every game in the operation rainfall campaign.
As for Bayonetta 3 it will come. We shouldn't have to be reassured as frequently as we are. I'm also certain that Platinum knows exactly what direction they want to go with the game.
Tbh they could just port the first two games again or rehash it and you all would be happy.
It'll be ready when it's ready. This isn't Scalebound; Platinum knows how to make good Bayonetta games.
But, as an SMT fan, I understand the pain of going years without much in the way of updates, lol.
@Bizzyb lol Dude you are just to young! Google for Duke Nukem and you will see that this kind of stuff was happening many years before, too!
Bayonetta 3 has now become Nintendo's Half-Life 3. We'll still be talking about this mythical game decades from now XD
All good. They showed an announcement trailer. Soon will be the gameplay trailer. Followed by a release date trailer. What more do they need to do. Just relax, and play the backlog.
Ugh, people need to take a chill pill. It's beyond childish at this point. STOP ASKING KAMIYA, THE GAME IS IN DEVELOPMENT.
Sit down, wait. You've got a life to live, don't delude yourself into thinking that having a release date for Bayonetta 3 is gonna make it better.
The longer development takes, the longer they've had to work on it, and the more polished it has a chance of being.
Also @Slowdive seems pretty obvious that the problem is the people, not the developer - people just need to stop asking and move on with their lives, because it's not gonna make the game come out faster. It'll be there when it is ready.
We won't see anything until 2022.
My guess it's a late 2022 release at earliest.
I'm thinking it's a Game Awards announcement with a late 2022/early 2023 launch.
Based on his Twitter behavior (namely blocking people for stupid reasons), he seems like a real jerk and I don't even know if I want this game anymore.
Switch Pro exclusive, clearly.
Despite what fans think this is not a very big game (in sales numbers).
"While sales have not been fully disclosed, by March 2018, Nintendo confirmed the Switch version [of Bayonetta 2] had sold 400,000 copies during its first nine weeks, compared to the 300,000 copies the Wii U version sold during the same period."
It is a game that rely on the "wow"-factor and it is probably hard to make something that is bigger, better, bolder than the last game with its Plane-Train-Skyscraper-introduction.
The 1% of the Switch player base that will buy this are very passionate but it will not make Platinum or Nintendo enormously rich.
They announce Games before they arrive.
They still need Games for 2022, so they will announce and release it next Year
I am more worries about Bayo 3 more than ever after seeing Babalons Fall a game made by Platinum and that its been almost 4 YEARS since the games reveal
@Liam_Doolan are you gonna do one of these for Monolith Soft and Retro, too? I know we didn't have any confirmed games from these studios but their absence was definitely felt yesterday.
What on earth were Retro working on for years with nary a peep out of the studio? What have Monolith been working on since the last brand new game they put out was years ago, they're one of Nintendo's largest studios and seen to crank out huge games in tiny timeframes yet their non-appearance yesterday was highly conspicuous.
All this plus an MIA Bayo really put a dampener on the show, then realising we've got to wait at least another 6 months for BotW2 was just more than I could bear at that point. Highly disappointing, Metroid Dread being the one glimmer of hope in a sea of despair.
Edit: I've just realised I didn't mention Pikmin 4, such is the ridiculous situation with that game it's almost nonexistent in my mind these days.
Switch "Pro" Advance, Bayo 3, BOTW2 and MP4 in 2022? Ok, maybe not MP4 but could be quite a year.
Vapourware, just like the so-called Retro Studios mystery project (which never existed at all, as in fact the company was just about bankrupt and ready to shut down at the time).
Platinum Games.. bah….
Honestly... I'm losing hope, not only in Bayonetta 3, but also in Platinum*.
I'm starting to realize that my favorite games of theirs have been when they only handle specific pieces of someone else's IP (Okami**, NieR, Granblue***, Star Fox Zero, etc), and the actual tastes and sensibilities of the current studio do not match my own.
For instance, their next big project is that superhero kaiju game, and that's the last thing I'm interested in. None of their own games, like Bayonetta, Wonderful101, or even Astral Chain, line up with my personal tastes. As much as I want to try Astral Chain for its quality gameplay, I just know I will lose interest in the world itself, and the purchase price won't be worth it in the end.
**yes, obviously Okami was made by Clover Studios, but the original team is no more
***yes, Granblue Fantasy Relink's development was essentially rebooted without PlatinumGames, but the OG gameplay reveal still looked great
Bayonetta 3 seems to be holding the record for the longest development time for a Switch game published by Nintendo. That would mean the standards are set very high for an IP that Nintendo acquired, not developed. Whatever is causing the long development time, the game sounds more ambitious than expected.
I haven't played the first two Bayonetta games. I've never even heard of her until her appearance in Smash 4. If Nintendo intends for this game to capture a wider audience, they're doing things in a questionable manner.
Atlus Fans who waited years for SMT V: First time?
@Otoemetry
Monolith Soft only just finished working on Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition (keep in mind, that one is technically a remake because it's on the XC2 engine), not to mention part of their development team, which only expanded over the past few years, has also been working on BotW2. There's no way they'd be done this quick, and I doubt they'd have a big enough team to work on multiple Xeno projects at once.
As for Retro, don't be shocked or disappointed. Metroid Prime 4 has only been in development for 2 years; the years before that don't count anymore, aside from maybe bits of concepts. Other games like BotW 2 have been in development for much longer.
@ModdedInkling thanks for the reply!
I'm not sure I agree with you about Monolith though (I'm no expert but it contradicts a lot of what we know about them) considering XC2 was made by a team of 60 people in less than 3 years, they can create enormous games very quickly and realistically with Nintendo's full Zelda team working on BotW2 how many Monolith staff would be needed do you think? Whatever the case may be, as a Xenoblade fan I was sad not to see a port of X make an appearance.
As for Retro, I was hoping we'd maybe see a little snippet of MP4 but I knew it might still be too early for that. I'm talking about what they were working on before that, what were they doing for years after they finished DK: Tropical Freeze?! I suppose whatever it was has been canned, which is a huge disappointment.
Also, where is the fabled "nearing completion (in 2015)" Pikmin 4! The longer it goes on the more angry it makes me, like why mention it if it's not true? I can handle game series being dormant but not this ridiculous situation we're in now not knowing if a game which was supposed to be nearly finished 7 years ago will ever see a release.
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