The Persona series has been a follower of habitual patterns since the beginning, utilizing, but improving, the same formula for decades. The player follows a silent protagonist who, with the help of other high school students, can fight Shadows in a supernatural realm of some kind. They do this by calling on their Persona, a power hidden within themself, and it also blends socializing and dating into the main storyline to create a surreal life simulator.
Persona 5 did all of this masterfully. It performed so well that fans are beginning to wonder how Joker can be topped in the following installment, presumably Persona 6. The fifth installment was written with a male protagonist in mind, from posing as Makoto’s boyfriend to the assault charge that sets the game on its course, so it would have been difficult for Atlus to somehow wedge a female protagonist in a rerelease the way that it did with Persona 3. But Persona 6 could be the perfect opportunity to introduce one because it would relinquish many comparisons to Joker by fans.
Especially thanks to the enhanced Persona 5 Royal and its addition of the lovely Kasumi, it’s clear that the writers over at Atlus far from struggle with writing female characters. Though many are archetypes and stereotypes, the personalities Joker meets throughout his time in Tokyo are written tastefully, from Ann’s battling with others’ over-sexualization of her image to Futaba’s learning to trust strangers and overcoming her depression. So it’s interesting that a main Persona installment has not yet seen a complex female protagonist.
Actually, in comparison to Joker, they have far more personality than him in general. Joker is the epitome of the “silent protagonist,” the cool and stoic character. But because of his cohesive design, the calm leader was a successful persona rather than being a generic recreation of the silent protagonist. This can be observed with P3‘s female protagonist, who was more expressive and bubbly on the outside while hiding her depression on the inside.
However, with Persona 6, Atlus will need to decide if it once again wants to regurgitate this personality trait. With a female protagonist, not only would the change in gender be refreshing, but it could also give way to doing away with the redundant silent stoic main character.
While it would be great to see a female protagonist take the stage in the next Persona game, there is one glaring issue with this that Atlus would need to keep in mind going forward. Since Persona 3, one main draw of the series is romancing the wide variety of women in the dating sim aspect of the games. While many female gamers would love the opportunity to play as a woman and romance men, this wouldn’t go over well with many players of the opposite gender that look forward to their waifus.
Unless, the series finally introduced multiple LGBT relationship options, but this could be an entirely different can of worms to a portion of the audience. Still, doing so would remedy the restriction of romancing only men with a female protagonist, and all players would have the option of dating their waifus and/or husbandos.
The only way to top Joker’s success isn’t to simply recreate him in another silent male protagonist but rather run in a completely opposite direction that the series hasn’t seen since Persona 3. By featuring a female protagonist as the only main character for Persona 6, players could see a set of problems unique to a teenage woman, a refreshing and progressive turn for the series, and Atlus, to take after a long line of repetitive titles.
Persona 6 is rumored to be in development.
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