Bayonetta voice actress tweet casts doubt on her further involvement with the franchise

Hellena Taylor, the English voice actress for Bayonetta, has hinted that she may not reprise her role in future games of the hit video game series. On Twitter, Taylor posted: “The greatest gift of doing Bayonetta are my lovely fans.” When a fan replied they can’t imagine Bayonetta without her voice, Taylor replied: “Well you might have to,” and when pressed for further information, she stated: “I’m not at liberty to say.”

While this is potentially saddening news for Bayonetta fans, it’s worth noting that voice actor and actress contracts can be quite finicky — this could merely mean the contract is taking longer than expected to finalize, rather than a VA replacement or cancellation.

However, it is hard to imagine Bayonetta without her signature voice. A similar issue happened with Metal Gear Solid V when Kiefer Sutherland replaced David Hayter as the voice of Big Boss. While the game still shipped, fans were still left missing the signature voice of the main character, even spawning several Change.org petitions to keep Hayter as the voice of Big Boss.

Bayonetta 3 still has no release date. However, in an interview with VGC, director Hideki Kamiya stated that “ultimately, it’s not [the studio’s] decision what to say and when to say it.” Bayonetta 3 will launch as a Nintendo Switch exclusive.