Release date: Oct. 2014

Nintendo just revealed that Bayonetta 2 is coming to Wii U. Osaka-based game studio Platinum Games, who developed the first Bayonetta, is once again bringing the character to life.

Nintendo is publishing this Wii U exclusive. Atsushi Inaba of Okami fame is producing, and Yusuke Hashimoto, who produced the first Bayonetta, will be directing.

The brief trailer doesn't show any game play footage, but does show Bayonetta's new pistol heels, which are now blue, reflecting the character's new color motif. In the first game, her heels were a red hue.

No word on when gamers can expect Bayonetta 2 to shoot up their Wii U consoles.

I don't understand why Nintendo publishing it affects the exclusivity. What legal process does this complicate? Is it not possible for a third-party to break out of a contract or to port their IP to another system?

On September 13, 2012 Bayonetta 2 was announced as an exclusive title under development for the Wii U during the Nintendo Direction presentation held on the same day.
As game developers, we are incredibly excited to be able to announce a new title to all of our fans; however, we are aware that the announcement may have come as a shock to many of you.
As with Bayonetta, Bayonetta 2 is under development and production here at PlatinumGames, and is a true sequel to the acclaimed first game in the series. Bayonetta is one of our most beloved titles, and it played a large part in establishing PlatinumGames as an emerging game studio in the minds of users worldwide. Bayonetta has fans the world over, and we would never dream of alienating them from participating in the future of PlatinumGames.
That being said, the console games market is in a state of upheaval, so establishing a new game franchise requires a considerable amount of will, determination, and love. Bayonetta is a brand that we want to see become stronger, reaching the hands of more and more gamers, so we have continued to consult with SEGA, the previous game’s publisher, on how we can make sure this takes place. Our answer was a new partnership with Nintendo.
Along with their new hardware, Nintendo, as a company, is dedicated to establishing a new future for the games industry, as you can tell by their record of passionate support for gaming. Alongside Nintendo, we hope to grow the Bayonetta brand beyond where it stands today, allowing even more gamers around the world to experience the action of our beloved witch. As developers, we are working hard to make this a reality.
We hope that you will look forward to what we have in store.
Tatsuya Minami
President & CEO, PlatinumGames Inc.

I’m Yusuke Hashimoto, director of Bayonetta 2. It has been three years since Bayonetta, a title I was also a part of… I’m incredibly happy to be able to announce that we are working on a sequel. Alongside Bayonetta’s creator, Hideki Kamiya, I’m working on everything from creating a compelling world to character designs (I will be designing the enemies again), and everyone on our talented team is united around the core of Bayonetta, Climax Action, in an effort push the series forward. For empowering our heroine with incredible new action to introducing new characters (which you may have noticed in the teaser trailer), Bayonetta will further expand on the mythology of the Trinity of Realities – Inferno, Paradiso, and our human world. I can’t wait to take the journey with you.
Yusuke Hashimoto
Director, Bayonetta 2

After Bayonetta was released, I was coming back on the bullet train with Yusuke Hashimoto, pondering various ideas for sequels or spin-offs to Bayonetta over a beer. I never thought we’d actually get to announce a sequel to her story, so I am absolutely over the moon.
Even though there has been a bit of a gap since the release of the last game, but I still got lots of request for a sequel from gamers. We were secretly making one the entire time. While I am not the director of this game, I am still supervising the world, story, characters, etc. in close coordination with Hashimoto, and I have been from the very beginning. You have nothing to work about on that end. And of course, plenty of members from the first Bayonetta are on-board and working hard under the direction of Hashimoto, so I look forward to work every day, coming in and seeing all the progress they have made on the game. With new hardware, we look forward to expanding on the Climax Action of Bayonetta, so sit tight and get ready!
Hideki Kamiya
Supervisor, Bayonetta 2
Director, Bayonetta

Bayonetta 1 & 2 coming out in the same package!

The now completed port has been in the works for roughly a year and a half now, and was first conceived with the blessing of Nintendo. According to Hashimoto, the reasoning was simple: "We thought it would be awesome to let fans play both on the same console."

Platinum ended up outsourcing much of the project to a little-known studio based in Osaka called Bee Tribe, with "every aspect of its development" being overseen by Kamiya. The result might well be the definitive version of the original game, and it's being packed in with Bayonetta for absolutely nothing (assuming that you buy it at retail). By pretty much any measure, it's an incredible value.

Samus costume

- a unique take on Samus' armor, including a visor you control
- fire shots from Samus’ arm cannon

Peach costume

- skimpy version of Peach's dress
- use moves that feature giant versions of Bowser’s hands and feet
- has an alternate whip weapon
- makes coins fly out of enemies

Link costume

- use the Master Sword
- Bayonetta is wearing Link's green tunic
- makes rupees fly out of enemies

2-player Tag Climax mode
Team up with others online to defeat powerful enemies. Choose your character and join forces with a friend online** to wreak havoc on angels and demons alike.

The now completed port has been in the works for roughly a year and a half now, and was first conceived with the blessing of Nintendo.

It's not a free digital copy of the game you're buying, it's a free digital copy of a separate game that was previously unavailable on a Nintendo system.

Or were you just ranting about CDs with digital copies and not talking about Bayonetta at all?

The twist here is that B1 is only available through the physical release of B2, not the digital eShop version of it. xD

Bayonetta will be included with the purchase of every packaged version of Bayonetta 2. Nintendo eShop purchases of either Bayonetta or Bayonetta 2 will include an automatic discount on your purchase of the other game.

I'm curious if NA release will have the original game on disc or download?

FIGURING OUT DAMAGE MOTION

Hello everybody! I’m the lead motion designer for Bayonetta 2, my name is Takaaki Yamaguchi. I’ve been making motion in action games for over ten years now. That fact is starting to make me feel old.
Anyway, let’s talk about what a motion designer does. We discussed this back in our old Bayonetta blogs as well, but basically, we give movement to anything in the game that requires motion. We end up playing an important role in several areas of the game—making sure all the characters don’t look like they’re stumbling around, getting the main character’s controls to feel right, making enemy movement easy to understand, and so on.
Working on a sequel, it was our job to carry over the feel of the motion from the original Bayonetta, and make it even better. For this blog, I’d like to talk specifically about damage motion for enemies. You know, that motion you see when you land a huge deathblow on an enemy and they get knocked back and explode or whatever. You might have never thought that deeply about it, but for an action game, getting the right reaction out of the enemy after you’ve pulled off a killer combo is absolutely critical. Do a slack job and the thrill of battle will turn into a total letdown. Enemy damage motion is something I’ve always regarded as highly important in the games I’ve worked on. I always am asking myself if there’s not something new I can try to create more satisfying combat than before.
My challenge to myself for Bayonetta 2 was to create the right enemy motion for each attack. We had plenty of enemy reactions that would change depending on what attack Bayonetta performed, but I wanted to take this further for Bayonetta 2. It’ll probably be easier to understand if you just see it, so take a look at the videos below.

...if you watch the enemy in both videos, you’ll notice it plays the same motion for each attack in the first video, while in the second, the enemy’s reaction changes based on the kind of attack being performed.
This is just one example from the game, but each little detail like this I think really added up to make a great feeling game overall. Doing a little research, I realized that the enemies in Bayonetta 2 have an average of 3.5x the number of reactions as those in the original.