According to a report, during the long and protracted development cycle of Bayonetta 3, the game would have potentially been set in a semi-open world environment.

One of the possible reasons for Bayonetta 3’s long and protracted development cycle was that it was at one time planned to be a semi-open world game, according to a new report. Bayonetta 3 was first announced back in 2017, followed by a long, five-year development cycle that left fans incredibly tired and anxious for its release. While there were hiccups and controversy in the days leading up to release, Bayonetta 3 was a huge success for PlatinumGames, receiving rave reviews on Nintendo Switch, proving it was worth the wait.

Some fans may be wondering why and how Bayonetta 3’s development ended up in such a messy and protracted way, one of the possible reasons for which was mentioned by Imran Khan in a recent interview. Khan recently launched a gaming newsletter on his Patreon called “Everything Everywhere Once A Week”, which covers a number of games, including Bayonetta 3. He notes that one of the lesser-known reasons the game’s development was lengthy is due to the fact that it was initially conceived in a potentially semi-open world environment.

While Nier: Automata is an open-world game from PlatinumGames, this premise was originally inspired by another Switch-exclusive action game from the developer, Astral Chain. Reportedly, this would have featured a large, Super Mario 64-like hub world in which Bayonetta or possibly other characters would go to different worlds that also feature some open-world play. This led to quite a bit of experimentation with this idea, but it reportedly fell apart in terms of pacing.

Cutaway shots of the characters in Bayonetta 3
Nintendo itself has stepped in and asked the developers to take things back, as the Switch was also crumbling under the pressure in terms of performance. Although Bayonetta 3 was eventually built chapter by chapter, Khan notes that there are still remnants of that original idea in the game. For example, Thule would have been the hub world, which was broken down into smaller pieces in the final release for Bayonetta and Viola to access.

Other tidbits include that the chests would have been redesigned to fit into a larger area and would have provided many unique environments. The weapon redesign would have also played a role in how players would have moved through the game as well. Despite this idea being scrapped, Khan speculates that since PlatinumGames likes to reuse scrapped ideas, he hypothesizes that this semi-open world idea could be used in a completely different game down the road.