Cliff Notes – New persona announcement due this week but prepare for disappointment
- Atlus is set to unveil a new Persona title, but it is confirmed to be a spin-off, Persona 5: The Phantom X, rather than the long-anticipated Persona 6.
- Persona 5: The Phantom X is a free-to-play mobile game featuring a new Phantom Thief team, maintaining gameplay elements from Persona 5 but designed for smartphones with microtransactions.
- Fans are left frustrated as the announcement is perceived as a diversion from the expected Persona 6, with speculation about its reveal remaining uncertain and potentially linked to future showcases.
New Persona announcement due this week but prepare for disappointment
Persona 5: The Phantom X – there’s too much red for it to be Persona 6 (Atlus)
Atlus has confirmed that a new Persona title will be unveiled on Thursday but despite what fans hope it’s almost certainly not Persona 6.
Persona 5 will be 10 years old next year. In that time there’s been innumerable spin-offs, as well as a remake of Persona 3 and rumours that Persona 4 will be getting the same treatment. What there hasn’t been any word on though is Persona 6.
It was eight years between Persona 4 and 5, so even taking longer development times into account this isn’t unusual, but it’s frustrating for fans that literally the only thing we know about Persona 6 is that its main colour is green, rather than the red of its predecessor.
Hopes rose today that maybe there’d finally be a reveal, as Atlus announced a livestream for a new Persona unveiling, but instead of Persona 6 it’s just yet another Persona 5 spin-off.
Persona 5: The Phantom X is a free-to-play live service game from Chinese publisher Perfect World, that has already been available in open beta in China since last April.
It features a completely different Phantom Thief team but with similar gameplay to Persona 5, albeit streamlined for smartphones and filled with microtransactions.
In short, it’s probably the last thing fans wanted but presumably the annoucement this week is for the full release in Japan and (probably but not definitely) the West.
Some fans have tried to convince themselves it is for Persona 6 but not only is the colour scheme and art style clearly that of Persona 5, but the owl emoji is a reference to the character Lufel, who is the game’s equivalent of Morgana from the main game.
When will Persona 6 be announced?
If you have to see it all for yourself, the livestream takes place on Thursday, May 15 at 3pm BST.
The YouTube video for the stream is already live and features artwork that makes it very clear that this is Persona 5: The Phantom X and not Persona 6.
Sadly, there really is no clue as to when Persona 6 will be revealed, although when it does arrive it’s expected to be multiformat, including for Xbox and the Switch 2.
Given the critical and commerical success of Metaphor: ReFantazio, Atlus is in no rush to say or do anything about Persona 6, but the further we get away from Persona 5’s original launch date the more likely an annoucement gets.
It’s possible Atlus may use one of the not-E3 summer showcases to unveil it, but it’s just as likely they’ll reveal it via one of their own events. There may even be a tease in the livestream on Thursday, but that seems unlikely.
Perhaps the main question now is whether Persona 4’s remake will be announced and/or released before Persona 6. Considering there’s more evidence for its existence than for the sequel, that’s probably quite likely.
A spin-off mobile game is tantamount to trolling fans (Atlus)
Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter.
To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.
