Beyond Persona: Project Re Fantasy

You can tell a company is in good standing with its fanbase when all they have to do is provide a light tease to generate a plethora of speculation among internet types.

Atlus is the most recent example, who, through Famitsu, posted teaser artwork for a soon-to-be-revealed game. The most eye-catching aspect was how it was drawn by Shigenori Soejima, art director and character designer for the Persona franchise since 3 and last-gen puzzle/adventure title Catherine. The art depicts a red-haired elven female warrior, which immediately relays to the observer that Atlus is working on a fantasy game. It’s reminiscent of Soejima’s fantasy artwork for PS2 strategy/RPG Stella Deus: The Gate of Eternity, the first title he contributed to as lead character designer and art director. This is a brand-new property unrelated to Persona or Megaten, the first such project from Atlus’ internal studios in a long while.

(That is, unless you want to count Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, though that’s still a crossover project despite the Fire Emblem and Shin Megami Tensei elements being more tenuous than expected.)

Persona director Katsura Hashino is also assuming the same role on this game, one that will be the first from Studio Zero, a new development studio within Atlus. With this small amount of info, the speculation machine started rolling about precisely what kind of RPG this could be, and especially what system (or systems) it would release on. With how it was being teased, this appeared to be a console game, but it could have easily been a handheld or mobile one given recent Japanese gaming industry trends.

The leak of Famitsu’s magazine contents revealed that the intended platform is…nothing, at least for this moment. In fact, it’s not even a game yet. It’s currently called “Project Re Fantasy: A Fool’s Journey Begins,” one the previously mentioned individuals have only barely started, given how they only recently finished Persona 5. They’ll also be joined by Persona (and overall Megaten) composer Shoji Meguro. It’s being announced at this extremely early stage because the establishment of Studio Zero marks the expansion of Atlus as a game developer, and they need to hire more staff capable of working on console games. This makes sense for a developer whose largest contributions since the PS2 era have been handheld titles, outside of three internally-developed HD ones, but it serves as an overly early tease for those looking forward to the team’s next project.

This move is comparable to The Witcher-developer CD Projekt Red’s announcement of Cyberpunk 2077, which happened early with nothing but concept art and general ideas for what they want the game to be, followed by an eventual teaser trailer. Note that it’s been nearly four years since that video released, and we’ve seen nothing since. That might give you an impression of how long we’ll be waiting for Project Re Fantasy, but here’s hoping Atlus moves a little faster.

In both Famitsu’s magazine and on the official stream, Soejima provided artwork showing the concept for the project they want to create. The aforementioned elven woman shows up in two of the pieces, though presumably at different times in her life given her alternating features. But alongside her is a young boy with blonde hair, who looks ready to be a Japanese RPG protagonist. The development team members mentioned how it’s still in the conceptual phase, meaning character roles and actions for the story are far from finalized. Like Cyberpunk 2077, Project Re Fantasy also received its own concept video, though this one is live-action. All the media thus far has been posted on the official website, though you have to wonder how the rpg.jp URL was still available after all this time.

The stream also featured Soejima drawing special artwork of the young boy being accompanied by a dog, the same pair that appear in the Studio Zero logo. This was accompanied by Meguro’s music, whose style is reminiscent of his Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey compositions, albeit without the Gregorian choir. That’s good news for anyone who’s been hoping Meguro would return to this style for at least one more project (and it’s not just me!), though it’s surprisingly happening outside the confines of the Megaten universe.

Signs suggest this will be a worldwide project, too. Not only does the official website contain a sizable amount of English, Altus USA sent out a press release about the new studio and project development. But outside of everything we already knew, they also included an interesting tidbit: Hashino will work as director for this project and help build Studio Zero from the ground up, while Soejima, Meguro, and other P-Studio team members will continue working on future Persona games alongside this. It sounds like Hashino will be moving on from the franchise, at least for now, so hopefully the development team has another director with at least nearly similar talents.

Atlus is primarily known for making RPGs in modern or post-apocalyptic settings, so a fantasy title is more unfamiliar to them. But it’s not uncharted territory. They did a fantastic job with the setting for Radiant Historia for DS, which featured talents from Shin Megami Tensei development studio Team Maniax. Check it out if you haven’t, assuming you can find a copy.

Hashino mentioned that the game is a good while off, as previously implied. Don’t expect to see anything concrete from the project until 2018 at the earliest, while it could release in 2020 if the team can move quicker than they did with their last game. Meanwhile, Persona 5 is due to arrive in western territories in April, but Atlus has other games in development they’ll be revealing in the next year. They aren’t all working on one game, of course.