Atlus Teases 7 Persona Projects for 25th Anniversary

Whether you are stealing hearts, solving murders, or simply hanging out in the Velvet Room, the Persona franchise is one of style and substance. As a huge fan of the series, the 25^th anniversary has not gone unnoticed, at least for me. It seems that Atlus hasn’t forgotten either, as recently they revealed not one, not two, but seven upcoming Persona projects.

According to the Persona 25^th Anniversary website which is sadly in Japanese, there will be seven major announcements for the franchise between September of this year (for the first announcement) and “Autumn 2022” for the final announcement. Alongside this, they have released new merchandising to celebrate the anniversary, including merch depicting the game art for each of the mainline games as well as merch for each mainline series protagonist.

What is interesting about this in general, is that there are listings on the merch pages marked as secret, which many have interpreted as potentially teasing Persona 6. It would make sense, announcing the 6^th game in the franchise and producing merch for both the cover art and the protagonist at the same time. There are plenty of possibilities for the announcements though, and here are a few of my thoughts.

Firstly, the section for the upcoming September announcement is color-coded yellow, and while that is very little to go on, eagle-eyed fans of the franchise might remember that each Persona game has a dominant color. Persona 4 (or Persona 4 Golden) was themed in yellow, thus this choice (if intentional) could be a tease for a potential port of Persona 4 Golden onto Nintendo Switch.

In fact, due to Persona 5 Strikers being on the Nintendo Switch, along with Shin Megami Tensei V being a Switch exclusive (at least for now), it is the perfect time for Atlus to announce Switch ports not only of Persona 4 but of Persona 3 as well. In fact, many people are not familiar with Persona 1, 2, or its direct sequel, so new content in those games, remakes, or ports could be on the horizon.

Granted, these announcements could also be for anime adaptations, spinoff games such as ports for Persona Q and Q2, or a possible Persona Q3 announcement. The franchise is so ripe with content, spinoffs, and other ideas that there are a thousand ways they could celebrate the series over the next year. It is also important to note, that Atlus released a consumer poll last year, and one of the questions on it was something (paraphrased) like “What games in our catalog would you like to see on Switch?”

One of the possible answers (if memory serves) was “The entire Persona series”, not just one game, not just spinoff games, but the entire series. Could this be a coincidence? Possibly, but they asked only a few months before the anniversary talks began, so I doubt it. Either way, it is a great time to be a Persona fan.