April Fool's Day is usually for pranks and satire, but Sega instead surprised gamers with a free game on Steam featuring the gun heels-wielding Bayonetta.
The free game for PC, however, is not Bayonetta of 2010 or the Nintendo Wii U-exclusive Bayonetta 2 of 2014, but an entirely new game named 8-Bit Bayonetta.
'8-Bit Bayonetta' On Steam
Sega has released 8-Bit Bayonetta as a free download for PC gamers on Steam, and true to its title, is an 8-bit game that features the Umbra Witch.
"Thrill to her signature beehive do in 8-bit pixelated glory! Jump! Shoot! Score! Being bad never felt so retro," said the game's description on its Steam page. The game is playable on Windows 7 or higher, only needs 60 MB of storage space and 1 MB of RAM, and requires DirectX version 11.
The game itself is pretty simple. As a chiptune version of Bayonetta's theme song plays in the background, players will need to shoot down all incoming enemies while having Bayonetta jump up and down to hit all her targets.
However, while there is not much to 8-Bit Bayonetta, players quickly discovered that there is something else to the retro game beyond what it seems.
'8-Bit Bayonetta' Hidden Message
8-Bit Bayonetta has 16 total achievements for players to acquire, as seen in the Achievements page of the game. However, taking a closer look at the In the Face and High Score achievements reveals the URL sega.com/14111219.
The numbers in the URL are significant because this is Bayonetta's birthday, Dec. 19, 1411. Upon visiting the URL, players are presented with a countdown.
Upon sniffing through the source code of the website, it was discovered that the countdown is powered by a Javascript that contains a line in its code of "lastDate: '04/11/2017 08:00:00." This suggests that the end of the countdown would be on April 11 at 8:00 a.m. PDT.
What Will Happen Once The '8-Bit Bayonetta' Countdown Ends?
While 8-Bit Bayonetta was released right before April Fools' Day, Sega seems to be planning an announcement for just over a week from now. What could the announcement possibly be?
The likely answer to that question is that Sega is finally porting the first Bayonetta to the PC, as the title was only released on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and then on the Nintendo Wii U.
Another possibility is that Sega will be bringing both Bayonetta and Bayonetta 2 to the PC, though that might be difficult to pull off because Nintendo funded the sequel to be an exclusive title for the Nintendo Wii U.
Of course, there is also the chance that the countdown means nothing at all and is just one painful prank for fans of Bayonetta. 8-Bit Bayonetta actually started out as an April Fools' Day prank by Platinum Games, before the game was made into a reality for the developer's 404 error page. 8-Bit Bayonetta is the same game, but with the added Steam achievements that included the hidden URL.
While waiting for April 11 to hit, gamers thirsty for Bayonetta action can play 8-Bit Bayonetta to their hearts' content by downloading it on Steam or visiting the Platinum Games 404 error page.
