Bayonetta And Nier: Automata Dev Platinum Games Discusses Its New Projects

Platinum Games, the company behind action titles like Bayonetta, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, and Nier: Automata, has a number of projects in the works right now. We already know the company is making Bayonetta 3 for Nintendo Switch and co-developing Lost Order and Granblue Fantasy Project Re: Link for mobile and PlayStation 4, respectively, but it seems there are even more projects on the way.

The company's head of development, Atsushi Inaba, told Game Informer that Platinum is in the initial stages of planning a further two projects: "We've pretty much opened the company up to 'Anybody can pitch a game,' and so over the last year we've gotten about 70 design documents from different people," Inaba said. "So [2017 was] about us basically diluting which stuff we wanted to focus on and not focus on, and drilling down to the point where we now have two designs that we're genuinely focused on."

He continued: "We can't put together a AAA, $10 million-plus game, because we just don't have that sort of cash as an independent developer. However, we don't plan to go the indies route with just a few people on a team making a game, so it'll be somewhere in the middle, looking at probably about 20 people on the staff making the game, so that'll still be a healthy [size]."

Inaba also stated that Platinum is looking to self-publish more of its games going forward--every one of its games so far have been published by other companies. "One of the things Platinum is focused on is we're looking into creating our own IP, creating our own game," he said. "Up until now, obviously we've worked on original IPs for a wide variety of publishers. We've also worked on other Hollywood IPs for other publishers as well. But we're becoming more and more interested in the idea of self-publishing and doing our own title."

However, Inaba says this doesn't mean the end of Platinum working on other companies' franchises: "We will continue to do AAA games for other publishers and that's because, again, we don't have the cash flow to take on the risk to only do self-published games."

Bayonetta 3 will be published by Nintendo, but we don't yet know a release date. Until recently, Platinum was also working on a game for Xbox One. However, Microsoft canceled Scalebound, saying the move would be "better for Xbox gamers."

Platinum's most recent game was the PS4 and PC exclusive Nier: Automata, which we said was the #10 best game of the year in 2017. For more, check out our Nier: Automata review.