Though news has been scarce on Bayonetta 3 since its 2017 announcement, director Hideki Kamiya wants fans to rest easy knowing the game is still in development at PlatinumGames. Originally released in 2009 in Japan, the first Bayonetta blew audiences away with its fresh and irreverent take on the stylish action genre. Directed by Hideki Kamiya, the game essentially served as the rightful heir to the original Devil May Cry, which Kamiya also directed. The 2014 sequel, Bayonetta 2, was a surprise Nintendo Wii U exclusive, and remains one of the short-lived system’s most critically acclaimed titles.
At The Game Awards 2017, Bayonetta 3 was announced as a Nintendo Switch exclusive (alongside Switch ports of the first two games), but the game has been missing-in-action since then. In the years since the announcement, PlatinumGames has ventured into self-publishing with The Wonderful 101: Remastered and the mysterious Project G.G. The studio is also hard at work on Babylon’s Fall, which is due to be published by Square Enix, with whom the developer previously collaborated on NieR: Automata.
With so many different project in development, many fans are worried that Bayonetta 3 may not be getting the attention it deserves, or that it may even have been outright cancelled by PlatinumGames. In a recent interview with Video Games Chronicle, Hideki Kamiya put those fears to rest, asking fans to take those concerns and “throw them out the window immediately.” He insists the studio is still plugging away at Bayonetta 3 and that it absolutely has not been cancelled.
Bayonetta 3 is being published by Nintendo as a Switch exclusive. As such, Bayonetta 3 isn’t the kind of game that needs to be hyped for years on end. As a publisher, Nintendo tends to announce a game and then sit on it until it’s truly ready to be shown. Metroid Prime 4 was similarly announced in 2017, and the only news from that game was the announcement that development was being restarted at a different development house. For both titles, Nintendo likely won’t formally unveil the games until they have concrete release dates.
PlatinumGames is an incredibly talented developer. Arguably nobody else in the industry can handle kinetic action games like they can, and Bayonetta is their flagship property. While the first title was more of a critical darling than a commercial success, the character quickly became a Nintendo staple with the launch of Bayonetta 2 and the presence of the eponymous heroine in Super Smash Brothers. It can be hard to be patient, but Bayonetta 3 is coming. Eventually.
