In Bayonetta 3, one of the big elements of the game involves the famous witch fighting to save the multiverse. While some fans may have felt that this aspect came out of nowhere, series creator Hideki Kamiya has argued that’s not the case.
This comes from the new book “The World of Hideki Kamiya”. In an interview, it was brought up how Bayonetta 3 incorporates the idea of the multiverse. Spoilers for the series follow from here, so keep that in mind before proceeding.
In responding to that statement, Kamiya brought up different instances throughout the series in which PlatinumGames hinted at the multiverse. However, he did acknowledge that “there were some points in the first Bayonetta game where the explanations were not sufficient.”
Also, for those that played the series’ third game, we now have clarification on how it ended. Kamiya mentioned that “the ending of Bayonetta 3 does imply that Bayonetta is still alive.” Previously, this was unclear.
Kamiya’s full explanation, translated by Nintendo Everything, is as follows:
“We often hear that said, but actually the existence of a multiverse was depicted from the first Bayonetta. Since it was displayed in a low-key way perhaps it didn’t fully convey the idea.
So in Bayonetta there is a scene directly after you battle Balder right? In that, you rescue Cereza, a young child who had been absorbed into Balder’s body, and then send Cereza to the past, and it’s here that the timeline splits. After sending Cereza to the past, there is a scene where Bayonetta returns to the present and approaches Luka, and the background is doubled-up and blurred. That is a depiction of the real universe and another, diverged universe layering over each other. It’s a display of two worlds existing in parallel.
The existence of the multiverse was also shown in other parts of the battle with Balder. Balder releases a light beam from a goddess statue and destroys the moon right? We didn’t just destroy the moon to put on a show or on a whim. As we talked about before, the moon is the source of energy for witches, and so that’s why we destroyed it here. After that, Bayonetta should have lost the ability to use her magical powers, or at least had her power weakened…but in Bayonetta 2 and Bayonetta 3 the moon clearly existed right? That doesn’t mean the moon wasn’t destroyed in Bayonetta, but hints at the existence of multiple timelines. So, starting with Bayonetta and then in Bayonetta 2 and Bayonetta 3, the theme of the multiverse has always been at the root of the series. Although it was first cleanly stated in words in Bayonetta 3. So when fans play Bayonetta 3 and say ‘Suddenly a multiverse came out of nowhere’, I want to say ‘Try and play the first game one more time,’ although I can’t deny there were some points in the first Bayonetta where the explanations were not sufficient. And for me, I was happy hoping that players would have fun thinking and imagining. But in Bayonetta 3, some amongst the players imagined the situation quite negatively, and just accepted that ‘Bayonetta is dead.’ That was a big miscalculation on my part, and I understood the difficulty of thinking about how much space players should have left open for interpretation.
To say it clearly, the ending of Bayonetta 3 does imply that Bayonetta is still alive. There’s a menu where you choose your destination with a dart, that is a bit like Viola’s room right? As you clear stages, things you gathered during Viola’s journey such as photographs and keepsakes start getting added there too. After clearing the final chapter in the menu there will be a single new photo of Viola added, and in that photo you can clearly see Luka from behind. If Luka is there in this world, perhaps somewhere Bayonetta is too…
I had intended to include other hints as well. For example, at the start of the game Enzo’s wife is already dead, but he calls his wife during the ending. New York should have been in complete chaos, but is back to normal. And then one more was a line from Rodin to Viola, ‘Playin’ hooky again, huh? You know, I’m the one who has to hear it from your pops when you decide to turn my place into study hall.’ Luka and Bayonetta sink into Inferno in the final battle, but Viola’s father, Luka, is still clearly alive from that line. There are some people that interpret it as ‘Rodin is a demon, so he is communicating with Luka in the demon world’, but that is not the case.”
Kamiya would go on to talk about Bayonetta’s dance in the credits. Crystals appear that are supposed to represent the three different games in the series, and they become one light. This is supposed to indicate that the worlds became one thanks to the power of Bayonetta’s dance, resulting in a new world.
Kamiya said that he doesn’t usually like talking about things he’d like players to imagine for themselves. However, he’s no longer with PlatinumGames and isn’t involved with Bayonetta at this point, so he felt it’d be fine in this instance. Kamiya is currently at his new studio Clovers and is developing an Okami sequel.
Speaking of Bayonetta, we heard late last year that Kamiya insisted on keeping the character’s glasses even though publishers wanted them removed. We have more information about that here.
Translation provided by Simon Griffin and SatsumaFS on behalf of Nintendo Everything.
Related
