Humans are living here, but in their own realm of the human world since Bayonetta walks between realms in Purgatorio, everyone not directly in her purview appears as extra-dimensional silhouettes. Positioned next to Bayonetta and its sequel’s portrayal of modern New York City as hustling and bustling as in the real world, Bayonetta’s Vigrid stands out like a sore thumb due to the absence of an explicit presence of humanity. These dimensions were directly cribbed from Dante Alighieri’s opus of Christian theology, The Divine Comedy. In this world are three coexisting realms known here as the Trinity of Realities: the human world, Paradiso, and Inferno, between which lies Purgatorio where Bayonetta resides. But with the majority of Bayonetta taking place in Vigrid of the present day, the game positions its titular character as exemplary of a modernity which is in dialogue with a survived past. The city’s name is pulled from the battlefield Vigrid of Norse mythology, where the Aesir and Vanir gods clashed against Surtr of Muspelheim’s forces during the cataclysmic Ragnarök. In Vigrid, historical witch hunts of the past century in our reality are recalled in portraying Bayonetta’s trauma, one of motherhood, genocide, and memory loss. The game frequently flashes back 500 years in the past to Vigrid, a fictional European city of Bayonetta’s past, the architecture of which resembles sort of a mishmash between the late-period Romanesque and Gothic. The first Bayonetta directly pulls its influences from a range of different periods in art history dating back to as early as the 12th century. Replaying the first Bayonetta and its sequel when the two released on the Nintendo Switch this year, I was surprised by the extent to which their environments, architecture, and geographical variety allow Bayonetta-the character-room to explore the dyadic duality of her past and present lives.Įxemplary of a modernity which is in dialogue with a survived past There are hidden depths to every person, if only you know where to check for the recesses.

Bayonetta angels