Starting Prologue: World of Chaos and Chapter XVI: Sovereign Power while wearing the Star Mercenary costume, which resembles Fox McCloud from the Star Fox series, will turn Jeanne's jet plane into an Arwing. Wearing the costume during the former chapter will feature Jeanne wearing it as well, with a swapped color palette from green to orange. Wearing it during the latter chapter on top of turning the jet into an Arwing will replace the jet's reticle, weapons and sound effects with those from the Star Fox series including being able to fire Smart Bombs, charged shots, and replacing its Umbra Climax with the Hyper Laser. The cutscene at the end of Verse 2 will also switch the receiver sound effect with that of an Arwing's, as well as add three additional Arwings flying behind Jeanne towards Fimbulventr as a nod to the original four-pilot Star Fox team. Additionally, scanning a Fox or Falco amiibo in the Nintendo Switch version will display a message from Rodin implying that Slippy leant the Arwing to Jeanne.

Exclusive only to the Wii U and Nintendo Switch ports of the first two games in the series, several costumes were added that are based on Nintendo characters with additional features tied to them:

• Both the Mushroom Kingdom Princess and Sarasaland Princess costumes resemble the princesses Peach and Daisy from the Mario series, with Mario and Luigi charms attached to their dresses respectively. Coins will drop instead of Halos once enemies are defeated and collecting them will play the coin sound effect from the series. Attacks that summon Madama Butterfly are now replaced with Bowser's hands and feet.

• The Hero of Hyrule costume resembles Link from The Legend of Zelda series. Equipping the Shuraba with this costume will turn the current weapon into the Master Sword. Wearing the costume replaces the Halos with Rupees as well as the standard sound effects with those from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, specifically because it is series director Hideki Kamiya's favorite Zelda game. If Jeanne wears the costume, sound effects from the The Legend of Zelda can be heard instead.

• The Galactic Bounty Hunter costume resembles Samus Aran from the Metroid series. Samus's blaster cannon can be used without needing to equip a weapon skill. Furthermore, Samus' visor works differently between the two games.

• The Star Mercenary costume exclusive to Bayonetta 2 resembles Fox McCloud from the Star Fox series. Equipping the Love is Blue/All 4 One with this costume will turn the current weapon into Arwing Guns, each having charms that resemble Fox, Falco, Peppy, and Slippy. If Bayonetta dons the costume, sound effects will be replaced with those from Star Fox 64. However, if Jeanne dons the costume, sound effects from Star Fox will be heard instead.

• The Chain Chomp foot weapon, also exclusive to Bayonetta 2, can be obtained by completing all chapters on Hard difficulty. The Super Mario 64 Golden LP can be given to Rodin and he will give Bayonetta the Chain Chomp, which plays sound effects from that game. Upon performing the Umbran Dance with either Bayonetta or Jeanne will give them Mario and Luigi's caps with both letters replaced with the letter B and J, while also having fake mustaches.

One of Bayonetta's taunts, "If you need to learn how to talk to a lady, ask your mum", is a reference to Hideki Kamiya's Twitter responses, where he responded to questions being asked with "Ask your mom."

When it was announced, Bayonetta 2 was met with a negative reaction from fans on the basis of it being a Wii U exclusive (whereas the first game was published on the Xbox 360 and PS3). In response, Atsushi Inaba, one of the co-producers of the game, and executive director at Platinum Games, said that the game would not have existed without Nintendo's involvement.

During the years in between the first game's release and the second game's announcement, the publisher of the first game, Sega, had been scaling back on the number of games to be released/localized, and Bayonetta had been in danger of never receiving a sequel. Nintendo then approached Platinum about publishing Bayonetta 2 for their new console.

All of Noatun's designs were inspired by the palaces, cities and waterways of Italy and Belgium.

In the news report shown during Bayonetta 2's opening cutscene, the mission complete music from Wonderful 101 can be heard in the background.

Bayonetta's creator Hideki Kamiya hated the final cover artwork for the game. The original artwork featured a crescent moon in the background instead of a full moon, and the "2" in the logo was yellow instead of red.

Kamiya posted on Twitter his outrage over the cover saying "I hate the logo of WiiU ver. Junk." and "The Bayo 2 package is shit. Who's the damned bastard who changed it..." Kamiya had no control over the change of the artwork.

When asked about Bayonetta's new hairstyle, producer Yusuke Hashimoto said that the change had more to do with Bayonetta's personality, rather than just an arbitrary cosmetic change.