Bayonetta 3's Lead Designer Actually Left PlatinumGames Two Years Ago

Everybody chill. This is no cause for further alarm.

Wait, was he “lead designer” or did he just “recently assisted”? Because they sound like different things to me…

If he only worked on the game for 8 months and then left 2 years ago, I'm not really sure it's fair to call him the lead designer anymore.

The sky is falling, everyone!

What was he doing? We heard nothing until he left!

I mean, it takes many people to make a game. And many people are capable of making good games, so ....

So... Bayonetta 3's lead designer isn't really lead designer after all. 8 months of work doesn't seem to qualify imo. But, now I have been informed. I feel better now. Tbh, it kinda reminds me of the Knights who no longer say neat.

No wonder we had to wait so long

He only worked on the game for a year. Not sure why this is a problem

The game was delayed due to troubled productions, employee changeover, and world events (you know what I'm talking about). We really should be cutting developers some slack over the past two years, if it's been difficult to do your job at times, the same is likely for the gaming industry. There should be no surprise of a 5+ year development cycle if the game is good and quality checks are ensured, plus less rush and crunch time for the people. Insert Shigeru Miyamoto quote here. At least Platinum gave us the amazing Astral Chain as a stopgap between Bayo 2 & 3, go check out that game if you have not already (easily GOTY 2019 for Nintendo).

The hell do we care As long as the game is good. We (i mean people) waited kinda long time so bring it.

He won’t be in the credits…

As much as I was looking forward to this after enjoying the first two so much, I'm worried this game is going to be a bit duff or possibly even just average, which is worse in a way.

It has taken so long and I have lost so much of the hype I had, I'm not going to pick this up on release and wait for the reviews and general discourse, which was unthinkable to me when the game was first announced. There's just too much smoke coming from this fire now. Platinum Games have started acting strange too. It's a shame as they were one of my favourite developers.

In times like these, I think about Casino Royale. Writing on that movie started in March 2004. It was going to be Pierce Brosnan's fifth Bond movie and continue right on from Die Another Day. In the next two years it went through multiple rewrites, turned into a reboot with a new Bond, got a new director, filmed all of its scenes with mostly physical stunts - including some shot on a custom built, larger than ever, water-filled soundstage and one scene where a stunt car rolled over more times than any other car has ever been rolled before. Production involved thousands of people, real life locations around the world, and a budget of $150 million. 32 months after writing began, the film was in cinemas. And it was good.

Bayonetta 3 was announced in 2017, five years later doesn't even have an estimated release date.

Granted, Covid did happen. But shockingly enough, some companies have been able to release a game or two during the last two years. Not to mention the millions of other things people all around the world have been able to get done since Covid-19 started.

At some point you just have to stop saying "well, Covid" and start wondering what's really happening.

I know this is off topic, but god I love her knew look, I never played one of her games, but I just love this look waaaay more then any of the others, idk what it is I love so much, the hair, the cloths, its amazing....carry on.

@koekiemonster This is Platinum not MercurySteam.

Hold on . . wait a moment . . . There’s a new bayonetta coming! Xxx

@HotGoomba even if he was in MercuryStream he still would be in the credits if he was Lead Designer for the game for a year. It was mostly the temp contractors that barely did anything in MercuryStream that failed to meet bare minimum credit quota [that everyone knew ahead of time was a thing] that were miffed about it.

@Liam_Doolan so he recently assisted as the lead designer for 8 months of the game’s 5+years of development.

I’d say A lead designer, maybe not The lead designer, but thats just me being annoyingly pedantic (unlike the other kind of not annoying pedantry…)

So this game was indeed in development hell. Where there’s smoke there’s fire. I hope it turns out well. Bayo 2 was awesome.

@Dragonslacker1 Maybe.

Also not the lead designer of the last two Bayonetta games.

No cause for alarm.

I feel pretty uncomfortable about articles like these. This poor guy is basically getting doxxed for the sake of getting some clicks implying Bayonetta’s troubled development. Because that’s obviously the only point of doing that—it wouldn’t be interesting to say it about the new Kirby game, right?

Also, sure he’s gone to work for “Xbox’s” Tango Gameworks, but it’s actually also Shinji Mikami’s Tango Gameworks—Mikami being one of the original founders of Platinum. You can imply anything about this dude’s departure, but you don’t know why he left or who’s replaced him. Anything else is conjecture and a weird invasion of some game worker’s privacy.

@JasmineDragon I bet what happened is they started working on the game and said “now should be a good time to reveal it”

Bayonetta one was the game for me absolutely amazing at the time. New, dark and moody.
Number 2 was ok but did not even finish it.
Number 3 we shall see, but nothing I’ve seen so far matches number one, newness and witch dark atmosphere.

It's amazing how a completely new and original game like Astral Chain came out of nowhere and yet something like Bayonetta 3 and even Babylons Fall is taking forever.

Would love to hear the development stories behind these games

Seeing several comments assuming this game has had a troubled development/in development hell and we have no proof of that at all.

I found the first two so boring. The main character was lame and cringeworthy.

@JasmineDragon comparing films and video games are comparing oranges to apples. Games require so much more non-sense than a movie when it comes to production. For example, the first Iron Man's production was a mess, and it was saved by on-the-day re-writes, a strong cast, a good director and great editors. Games cannot function that way, as, without a strong production pipeline, it will be a rolling disaster. Films can be saved in editing... games get no last-ditch effort to save them. If pre-production, to production, is a disaster playtesting won't do much and you basically need to start over (see Metroid Prime 4 as a recent example). Odds are the loss of the Lead Designer was not that big of a deal as Platinum Games is known for having a solid pool of designers. The delays are probably due to P* having been overcommitted from working on Nier Automata, Wonderful 101 port, Astral Chains, Babylon's Fall, and add in Scalebound, which is a LOT of work for a relatively small studio (plus glossing over the impact COVID would have had on production).

It sounds like a lot of Scalebound's team got rolled into Bayonetta 3 after it was cancelled. Based on all reports, it was Nintendo holding back footage of Bayonetta 3 as Kamiya on multiple occasions has said the development has been going strong. I'm inclined to believe Kamiya as an executive director on the project, and while Yusuke Miyata may be a green director, he has worked on Metal Gear Solid V, a designer on Astral Chains and W101, and was the scenario writer for SMTIV. I think this team has a lot of talent working in its favour.

Remember, Zelda Breath of the Wild started development in 2011 before Skyward Sword was launched and did not come out till 2017 after countless delays. Let's cut P* a bit of slack here until we see more of the game odds are at E3 or the Q1 Nintendo Direct.

Astral Chain had some sweet bosses, Shinji Mikami always seems to prioritize over the top gameplay over anything else and he's doing Ghost Wire. Seems to me both Ghost Wire and Bayo 3 will be better because of this guy. Not sure why everyone her is so obsessed with the title of lead developer?

@Dethmunk Nowhere in the article is there any negativity. Calm down, or never come back, whatever saves you a headache.

This happens all the time. In any industry for that matter.

@Wexter Honestly, I'm inclined to cut them some slack, too. I have faith the game will be done eventually, and I trust the studio to make a good game. But it's been five years and not even a release window. Every time there's another story like this, it gets a little harder to keep the faith.

He worked on the game for 8 months. Slow clapiiiinnngggggggg.......now.

What another trash, clickbait article from NL lol. Did you even know WHY he left Platinum? And he supposedly worked on Bayonetta 3 as an assistant for 8 months and yet you lead of with “It’s been discovered” like you just found some crucial information about the game’s development. Give it a rest and like I said before on another of your trash clickbait article, it’s okay to have a slow news day.

I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't really start dev until 2019 which is why it took so long to get a trailer.

I’m not really fussed about this news but I must say recently replaying Bayo makes me rethink my feelings on the sequel and this newest entry. For me the original is just so good the sequel isn’t as good for replayability.

I hope this newest one is great but I’m keeping my hype levels low. Still looking forward to it though!

To all those saying the comments are all negative… are you reading what other comments actually say because most aren’t that negative at all lol

@Dethmunk Uhh bye, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Anyway this doesn't matter much since the guy barely worked on it. Really loved the first two games (and the anime movie) so hopefully it turns out well.

Ha he got purchased by Microsoft.

I would be surprised if Bayonetta 3 only has a single Lead Designer.

If he left in early 2020 but Platinum have said we are getting the game this year, I don't think there needs to be panic about this.

@JasmineDragon this is a very good statement, and really grounded on reality. It seems like Covid became the excuse of the century for not doing your job. Specially desk jobs.

Wow this is hilarious.

How is someone that's not Japanese that was at Platinum only a few years, worked on a game that never released, and worked on this game for only half a year (and the article headline says lead designer, and the article says assisted on the title) that interesting?

The most interesting thing the guy did was level design in Astral Chain, which was indeed good. But that's a far cry from a lead designer of all of 6 months mid-way through development...

@KryptoniteKrunch It's pure speculation at this point, but one has to wonder why exactly it has taken this long to produce any kind of preview for a game that was announced 5 years ago...if not development troubles, then what?

@JasmineDragon That's okay! I'm giving P* a lot leeway simply because outside of Starfox Zero (which is a fun game once you get the controls down... but that was more Miyamoto's fumble than P*), I've never been disappointed by one of their games. Nintendo has been pushing Bayonetta as a face of the company, so it is in both companies' interests to make Bayo 3 exceptional.

@Bizzyb Probably because it just wasn't ready. I feel much like Metroid Prime 4 or SMTV the game was announced during pre-production. SMTV was announced barely into development and took five years to come out with the arm of Atlus behind it. Odds are they over-extended themselves. They just wrapped Nier Automata and Starfox Zero; they were in the production of Scalebound, the most ambitious project they ever worked on and were working on Astral Chain for Nintendo while working on Bayonetta 3. Let's also not forget they have also been working on Babylon's Fall. It sounds like they just needed more time to spitshine the game, and I think that is fine. Kamiya has been very clear that Nintendo has kept a lid on the project probably because they like to show gameplay when the title is close to final.

Nintendo needed to build hype for the Switch and announced Bayo 3 too early. It happens, and honestly, I'd instead they take all the time they need. We complain that Pokemon games require more time but get fussy when games like Bayo 3 don't come out soon enough. We need to cut the devs slack and just understand the game will be released when it's ready, and trying to rush the devs does not help.

Don't mind if it doesn't launch this year. I bought 1 & 2 at release for the Wii U and still working my way through 1. If it takes another 5 years it'll probably be ready just in time for me....

@Bizzyb Wasn't SMT V announced earlier than Bayo 3 and we didn't see any of it until it was pretty much ready to go? For Bayo 3, it seems like Nintendo themselves are the ones holding off on revealing anything from the initial announcement to the trailer we got last year

This game is in development hell, and I fear Nintendo doesn't care that much. It feels like Nintendo just lets it drop out of their hands. I wouldn't be surprised that if the game gets released someday and turns out to be very bad (and completely flops), Nintendo immediately ends the franchise. Another franchise down the drain. Hopefully I am wrong.