Bayonetta 3 is going to be a bit crazier, possibly open world or open-ended

‘We did stage one, then stage two, then stage three and built up the drama and the pacing chronologically’

So it’s been roughly a year and a half since Bayonetta 3 has been teased, and we still have no idea what it entails or even what Bayonetta herself will look like in this iteration. It’s coming to Switch at some point and it’s once again published by Nintendo: that’s about the extent of the cold hard facts we have to date.

Yet, speaking to VGC, the team is hard at work on some spicy updates to mix the formula up. Platinum head producer Atsushi Inaba says it all: “With Bayonetta 1 and 2 we had basically an orthodox development process, at least for us. We did stage one, then stage two, then stage three and built up the drama and the pacing chronologically…for Bayonetta 3, we can say that we learned enough from making the past two games to change our process in a way that’s different to what I just described. Maybe the players will recognise this as well. And that’s all the hints you get!”

So Inaba is explicitly saying that Bayonetta 3 won’t be strictly chronologically mission based. Now this vague tease could mean anything. Bayo 3 could be “shot out of order” so to speak, with a more open-ended story from multiple viewpoints. They could also offer up something like Devil May Cry 5 did, with the option to select different missions at certain points in the campaign. Or, it could be full-on open world (even a micro-world with a hub) with dungeons to explore, just like Darksiders.

Again, this is all very unclear, but I think a lot of people will dig that Platinum is thinking outside of the box this time: even if we’d all collectively love another traditional Bayonetta game all the same.

Bayonetta 3 ‘has an unorthodox development process’, says Platinum [VGC]