Hideki Kamiya Intended To Continue Bayonetta With Another Trilogy

“Unfortunately, I’m not in a position to do that anymore”

• by Ollie Reynolds Yesterday, 5:30pm

With the departure of multiple key figures from developer PlatinumGames, including Hideki Kamiya, the future of the Bayonetta series is very much in doubt at the moment.

We reckon we’ll see our favourite Umbra Witch return in some capacity, but according to Hideki Kamiya, he had big plans for Bayonetta before his departure from the studio (thanks, Nintendo Everything). He states in his latest YouTube video that he had intended to continue the the series beyond what he viewed as a “stopping point” in Bayonetta 3.

Rather than end the series entirely at this point, he had hoped to create an entirely new trilogy which then might have continued into yet another new chapter. He laments, however, that he is “not in a position to do that anymore”. Instead, he is now working on an Okami sequel at his new studio Clovers in collaboration with Capcom.

Here’s what he had to say:

“So you want to know about the ending of Bayonetta 3. What if I had stayed at PlatinumGames – how far would the series have gone? Well, I do have ideas for it. I have ideas, but… well, I don’t want to just talk about it here, it’s hard to express in just words. I really wanted to express them properly through the game. Unfortunately, I’m not in a position to do that anymore.

“I often hear people say, ‘He wanted to end the series with Bayonetta 3.’ That’s absolutely not true. I just wanted to mark a stopping point as a trilogy. And for me, that stopping point was supposed to be the start of a new chapter. I imagined continuing the series with that new chapter. Maybe even make it another trilogy that leads into yet another chapter. That was my plan.

“And when starting that new chapter, I didn’t just think about the story. Of course, the story would be new, but also, the game system – I had been gradually evolving it from 1 to 2 to 3. For the new chapter, I imagined a complete model change – starting fresh with both story and game design. So, I never intended to end the series with Bayonetta 3. Some people even say, ‘Hideki Kamiya doesn’t love Bayonetta’, but that’s absolutely not true. I ended it that way because I wanted to continue Bayonetta’s story in a new chapter.”

Of course, we won’t spoil exactly how Bayonetta 3 concluded here, but we can understand to an extent why some had considered it to be the end of the series.

Now, of course, we may never truly know what the future of Bayonetta holds. PlatinumGames is free to continue the series without Kamiya’s involvement, but given that Kamiya had such a clear understanding of where he wanted to take the series next, it’s tough to know what PlatinumGames intends to do with the IP.

What do you make of Kamiya’s comment on Bayonetta here? Would you like to see more entries from PlatinumGames? Let us know with a comment.