These days, video game developer Platinum Games is known for its Bayonetta franchise. It has published a number of other games in its short tenure, but Bayonetta’s the only one to receive a sequel, and the main character was even recently added to the most recent iteration of Super Smash Bros.
However, making the first game was no easy process. In fact, it sounds kind of miserable.
All of this comes out of an in-depth feature by GameSpot where the company visited and spoke with several people at the developer earlier this year.
"One of the reasons people say Platinum Games is synonymous with action games is because of Bayonetta, but it also set the stage for the staff being able to execute on something no matter how tough things got and no matter how much energy needed to be put into it," GameSpot quotes Platinum Games executive director Atsushi Inaba as saying.
That kind of execution didn’t exactly leave the staff feeling particularly good when finished, however.
"At the end of development on Bayonetta, nobody was happy," Inaba told GameSpot. "Everybody was really frustrated and angry and we pushed really hard to finish that game and asked too much, and then asked even more of the team and of each other. At the end nobody was like, 'Oh yay. We go[t] it finished.' Everybody was like, 'We're never doing that again,' and at each other's throats. It was a very negative vibe that I still remember to this day."
Now, ultimately, the release was a big success for the developer, and it came back from that “negative vibe” in a big way. There’s the aforementioned sequel, after all. However, at the time, it sounds like the development cycle for a game that was ultimately highly praised was excruciating on a physical, mental and emotional level. Then again, the same could maybe be said for any video game in development.
