Bayonetta 3 Artwork Highlights Madama Butterfly and More

Bayonetta 3 is now officially a week from release on Nintendo Switch, almost five years after the title was announced at The Game Awards. As the Umbra Witch would say, she’s “unfashionably late,” but we’ll forgive her. The game has had many previews and trailers leading up to the launch, and a new blog post has added even more details to the mix. This time, we’ve got a video highlighting the artwork and models of character designer Mari Shimazaki and character modeler Tsuyoshi Takahashi. As you’ll see in the video below, we see Madama Butterfly and a series of monsters that will be a part of the game.

You’re not wrong if you watch the video and think Madama Butterfly looks different in the third entry. Shimazaki notes in the art pieces that an emphasis was added to create more details to the love demon attached to Bayonetta. She even went so far as to say that she redesigned her outfit to be more “goth metal.” Another element of the redesign is that Madama Butterfly knows Martial Arts, thus why her legs are more exposed. The 3D model for the character is also sculpted to imply the strength of the demon’s legs for combat.

The monsters you’ll see in the video feature some returning beasts but also some new ones. That includes the look at the demon attached to the new character of Viola. Cheshire is a cat demon with a mind of its own when summoned. But it’s still valuable in a fight, so Viola doesn’t mind too much.

Madama Butterfly will have an expanded role in Bayonetta 3. Previously, she was summoned by the Umbra Witch to make specific attacks. Whether it be a quick punch or kick or being fully summoned to make a “gigaton” attack on an enemy, she was a valuable weapon in Bayonetta’s arsenal. In the third entry, she’ll get to fuse with Bayonetta to become a new entity for combat, changing up the gameplay even more.

Additionally, Bayonetta will get to fully summon demons for combat. Like Madama Butterfly, previous titles had them called only for the “big moves.” But now, she can summon them freely into battle so they can fight threats on their own. The catch is that when she does this, her body is exposed. More than usual, we mean. She’ll have to watch out for enemy attacks on her as the demon does its business.

Another significant change is that in parts of the story, you’ll control the witch-in-training Viola, who has an entirely different moveset from Bayonetta. She wields a sword and throwing knives to use alongside her demon Cheshire and other witch abilities.

You’ll need to use both characters to the max to overcome the threat of the Singularity when the game arrives on October 28th for Nintendo Switch.