An interview with key developers of PlatinumGames reveals why the recently released Bayonetta 3 had a lengthy development period. While the game was originally announced in 2017, gamers wouldn't get any new information about the game until 2021, with the following trailers confirming a 2022 release date. Despite this protracted development cycle for the game, leaving some fans concerned about its release, Bayonetta 3 still ended up being a critical success.
This development was discussed in a recent interview between Famitsu and PlatinumGames, including key members such as supervisor Hideki Kamiya, producer Yuji Nakao, director Yusuke Miyata, and even Nintendo producer Makoto Okazaki. According to the interview, plans for Bayonetta 3 didn't go according to plan, not due to the developers being stuck, but rather the amount of content the team wanted to include.
Nakao corroborates this notion, where he stated that the team was never really stuck because they couldn't figure out what the gameplay should be like, but rather they wanted to keep adding on what was established. This includes adding new gameplay mechanics, with many of these adding up to Bayonetta 3 falling behind schedule. Miyata even noted that Kamiya and other staff members asked if they were adding too much at the time, but the team had brushed these concerns aside, even laughing about it in hindsight.
One of the specific elements they wanted to add upon was Bayonetta 3's demon slave abilities, where Kamiya noted they thought they just needed five for basic gameplay, while Miyao wanted at least ten that the player could summon. Miyao elaborated that the number of summonable demons ended up being unrealistic, and they needed to balance between adding a mix of new and old demons from previous games. Kamiya noted that the ones he wished to add to Bayonetta 3 were all from the first game, but didn't end up making it into the game.
Recently, a report indicated that one of the potential reasons why the game took so long to develop was due to Bayonetta 3 once considering having an open-world setting. It would have been similar to Astral Chain, where Bayonetta 3 would have multiple portals to worlds for Bayonetta and other characters to access, though experimentation with this supposedly caused it to fall apart in terms of pacing. This interview with Famitsu doesn't seem to indicate that there was any open-world consideration at the time, but rather the amount of content that the developers wanted to include caused the biggest delays.
Bayonetta 3 is available now on the Nintendo Switch.
Source: Famitsu (via Nintendo Everything)
