Bayonetta Update May Be Teasing Vanquish PC Release

Owners of the recently released PC version of Bayonetta received a minuscule update today, and it has fans of another Platinum Games-developed title excited.

As reported on both the Steam forums and NeoGAF, a 22 KB update released today adds a small file to Bayonetta's Extras folder. Inside is an avatar showing Sam Gideon, the protagonist of Vanquish.

There have long been calls from fans for a PC version of Vanquish, which was only ever released for Xbox 360 and PS3 when it launched back in 2010. The sudden Steam release of another older Platinum game, 2009's Bayonetta, may have opened the door for that to finally happen. It seems entirely this possible that this image is intended as a tease, given that Bayonetta's PC release was itself first teased with something hidden in a free 8-bit Bayonetta game that launched on April Fool's day.

Vanquish earned acclaim when it released back in 2010--it received a 9 in GameSpot's review--and has become something of a cult classic. It's a third-person shooter that was directed by Shinji Mikami, who's best known for his work at Platinum and Capcom, where he worked on the Devil May Cry and Resident Evil series.

There's not yet any official word from Platinum or publisher Sega about a Vanquish release, but we'll report back if and when that changes.

Separately, Platinum has uploaded a series of clips from the Bayonetta games to its YouTube channel. Each video features the same clip repeating three times, leading fans to speculate that this portends an announcement of Bayonetta 3. At this point, however, there's no direct evidence of that being the case. Platinum has not announced a sequel to Bayonetta 2, although Hideki Kamiya (director of the first Bayonetta) did say last year that it's something he's thought "a lot about."