Hellena Taylor, the voice actress for Bayonetta for the first two games and the character’s several other appearances on other games and media, wants fans to boycott the upcoming PlatinumGames title. According to Taylor, Nintendo gave her an “immoral” offer to reprise her role for the nth time. Jennifer Hale, who voiced the female Commander Shephard in the Mass Effect trilogy, replaces Taylor in Bayonetta 3. According to the game director, Yusuke Miyata, the decision was due to “various overlapping circumstances” but it appears that a payment dispute is to blame.
— Hellena Taylor (@hellenataylor) October 15, 2022 Taylor uploaded a series of posts on Twitter where she revealed that PlatinumGames offered her $4,000 to come back and voice Bayonetta again. She points out that Bayonetta is worth $450 million, give or take, and possibly even more. When you think about this, it does feel like Nintendo is in the wrong here. For what it’s worth, Taylor didn’t say Nintendo committed a crime or that this was all illegal. She admitted that this was all above board. However, as Taylor explains it, $4,000 isn’t what you’d consider a “living wage”, which is fair when you consider that she voiced the iconic character for so many years. To make matters worse, Taylor details that she had to re-audition to secure the role for the next game, which, she says, went excellent, only for Nintendo to give her an “insulting” offer. Ultimately, there’s this feeling that there’s so much more to this than what Taylor is saying. Unfortunately, because this is Nintendo we’re talking about, we’ll likely never get anything that will either confirm or deny anything Taylor said. Nintendo is very tight-lipped about these kinds of issues. But, we’re curious if Taylor’s attempt to boycott Bayonetta 3 will work. Before this issue, fans already had a lot of negative things to say about the new Bayonetta voice actress. Bayonetta’s voice plays an integral role in her as a character. It would’ve been easy to understand if Nintendo and PlatinumGames had to replace her because she had no other choice, but it’s just frustrating knowing that Taylor still wanted the role - Nintendo just wasn’t willing to give her an offer. We’ll find out more about how Taylor’s revelations will affect Bayonetta 3 when it comes out on October 28. In other news, PlatinumGames is hoping to deepen its relationship with Nintendo by hiring former long-time Nintendo employee, Takao Yamane, as its new chief business officer. We also got a look at the Umbra Witch trainee, Viola, in the latest Bayonetta 3 trailer.
