Bayonetta developer PlatinumGames teams up with Chinese giant Tencent

Bayonetta and Nier: Automata developer PlatinumGames is getting an infusion of cash from Tencent, the Chinese internet and media company that has financial stakes in Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft, and Epic Games. Tencent also owns Riot Games.

In a statement posted to the developer’s website, PlatinumGames president and CEO Kenichi Sato said his company’s partnership with Tencent “has no effect on the independence of our company, and we will continue operations under our current corporate structure.”

Sato said the investment from Tencent will help Platinum “strengthen our foundation as a business and expand from game development into exploring self-publishing.”

Platinum’s currently announced projects include Babylon’s Fall for Square Enix, Bayonetta 3 for Nintendo, and World of Demons for DeNA, though the latter game appears to be on hold. Two of Platinum’s most beloved action games, the original Bayonetta and Vanquish, will be re-released in remastered form on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in February.

In 2019, Tencent teamed up with Nintendo — which published Platinum’s Bayonetta 2, The Wonderful 101, and Astral Chain — to bring the Switch platform to China and to co-develop Pokémon games with The Pokémon Company.

Studio head Atsushi Inaba told VGC last year that PlatinumGames was moving toward a self-publishing model in an effort to own its intellectual property. Inaba said the Osaka-based studio was overhauling how it develops games, adding that Platinum was “in the middle of designing something that has never been done before.”