It has been quite an ordeal just to get the third core Bayonetta title on shelves, and yet, PlatinumGames’ Hideki Kamiya is already casting an eye forward to a Bayonetta 4. Despite the game being mired in controversies prior to launch, namely one centred around the franchise’s former lead voice-actor, the former voice of Bayonetta, raising concerns over the pay she was offered to reprise the role of the Umbra Witch, Bayonetta 3 was unanimously regarded as one of the year’s very finest games. With that success in the bag, Kamiya, who is well-known for his forthright approach to social media, has shared that Bayonetta 4 is already on the mind.
Taking to Twitter, Kamiya shared his thoughts on the ending of Bayonetta 3, and the displeasure that some fans and critics have expressed about it. In his tweet, he said, hoping to express what he clearly felt he’d expressed suitably in the game, ony for fans to not take it the way he’d intended,
I thought it was nothing unexpected… but the last part of [Bayonetta 3] doesn’t seem to have been conveyed to anyone correctly, so I think [Bayonetta 4) will be unexpected for everyone… I’m sure that when [Bayonetta 4] comes out, there will be that thing that says, “You added that after the game, didn’t you? I’ll say this now because I’m sure that when [Bayonetta 4] comes out, there will be a lot of “You added that after the fact, didn’t you?
The idea of Bayonetta 4 being next in the pipeline is not crazy to imagine, considering that previously expressed on Twitter that he had plans to take Bayonetta up to a ninth entry and that perhaps that wouldn’t even be enough to cover all that he wanted to say through the lens of the beloved Umbra Witch. For now, before he needs to enact Witch Time to have any chance of churning out a further six games before his time in game development comes to a close, Kamiya’s sights have clearly now been set on a Bayonetta 4. Bayonetta 3 had a protracted development cycle, taking a further five years beyond when it was first announced in 2017 for the game to actually launch. Presumably, he is hoping that the development of any further games will not take as long, but game development can be a fickle beast so who knows when we will see Bayonetta 4, let alone 5, 6, 7, 8, or a 9. Then there’s the question of the platform. Switch? Its inevitable successor? We wait and see.