Bayonetta 3 Gets A Rating, Grants Hope That It Will Release This Year

The pre-order pages for Bayonetta 3 have been updated with an ESRB rating, potentially solidifying Platinum Games’ past assurances that the game will release in 2022.

As spotted by Resetera user vestan, the official Nintendo store page for Bayonetta 3 has been updated with a rating. The poster also took a look on the Way-Back Machine and found that the page had displayed a “rating pending” designation before recently. The listing has yet to appear on the ESRB official website. However, the Nintendo store page details that the game has been rated M for violence, blood and gore, partial nudity, and strong language.

After an initial announcement teaser in 2018, no further information about Bayonetta 3 was released for more than three years. Despite repeated assurances from developer Platinum that development was going well, fans got nervous as the game continued to be a no-show across industry events. A Nintendo Direct in 2021 showed off gameplay footage and promised a 2022 release for the character action game. Nevertheless, the COVID-19 pandemic, along with a host of other factors, caused and is still causing delays of major titles. It was easy to worry that Bayonetta 3 will fall to the same fate.

A rating is not a release date, but it is a sign that some version of the game is out there. Combined with Nintendo’s own assurances of a 2022 release date, it is entirely within the realm of possibility that Bayonetta 3 will appear right on time.

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