There’s a special relationship that’s in place between new generations of consoles and long-running game franchises. Sometimes, franchises make a point of having one huge installment per generation, while others release tons of games with special games of note sprinkled in as launch titles. Over the past year, fans of the Xbox and the PlayStation got the chance to see how lots of different franchises handle this transition. Some games have already been incorporating new technology over time, whereas others are coming back from the brink to be on these powerful new consoles.
One franchise that takes things a little more slow and steady is Persona. The PS4 carried an extremely influential Persona 5, which has already had some extremely successful spinoffs. There’s the expanded edition, Persona 5 Royal, and there’s Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers, a Koei Tecmo collaboration. The hitch is that Persona 5 Scramble hasn’t gotten the chance to be a hit in the West yet; it’s only available in Japan. Western fans have reason to believe that Persona 5 Scramble will make it to the West someday, but it might come at a cost. For fans who are still clinging to the notion of more games starring the Phantom Thieves, a P5S localization might mean just the opposite because of the PS5.
The PS4 was definitely big for Atlus, as no Persona game has ever seen sales like Persona 5 did. This entry in the long-lived RPG series made Persona extremely popular in the West particularly, which means big things for Atlus moving forward. It now has a greatly expanded international market to think about when making more games in the series. There’s a lot to gain from the expanded audience, but of course, there’s also a lot of people to please. Consumers want to see what Atlus can make of the technical capabilities of the PS5.
Historically, if Atlus wants to release an expanded successor to a Persona game, it sees if it can do so on a different console from the original game. This precedent was set by Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden. Each game had lots of new features and updates over the original game and released on handheld consoles instead of the same console as the vanilla version. However, as far as Persona 5 goes, Persona 5 Royal released on the PS4 many months ago. Atlus has already taken the time to expand and refurbish Joker’s adventures, rather than waiting for another console.
That sends something of a signal that Atlus would rather focus on a brand new project for the PS5. It could’ve shuffled releases around and made Persona 5 Royal a PS5 game, maybe even a launch title. If Atlus had done that, Persona 5 Scramble might have gotten an international release already, whetting fan appetites before revealing a vastly expanded version of Persona 5 for the PS5. What’s done is done, though; Atlus has covered its bases and updated Persona 5, and quite successfully at that. Now all that’s left is Scramble.
Phan-Site Aficionados want nothing more than a sequel to Persona 5. The trouble is that Persona 5 Scramble is already sort of a sequel even through it’s far from a traditional Persona game. Differences in gameplay aside, it picks up Joker’s story six months after the first game’s conclusion. As cognitive powers re-emerge, the Phantom Thieves must reunite to steal hearts once again. Its premise is exactly what one would expect from a direct sequel, but that begs the following question: if Atlus makes a sequel, how will the premise be different?
It’s always possible that Atlus decides that the Phantom Thieves are so popular and successful that they’re worth breaking the formula for. Persona 5-2 could take the Thieves out of high school and see them fighting crime at college age, or continue the story down any number of roads. However, Atlus has a reputation for playing things safe, and the safe play here seems to be to call Persona 5 Scramble a sequel, and sequel enough. Scramble deviates from the formula without being unrecognizably new and still manages to tell a new story with the same cast, so it does what a Persona 5 sequel ought to.
It’s an unfortunate reality, but one that fans might just have to accept. Again, Atlus isn’t known for deviating from its traditions and pushing its own boundaries. Even when it polls its consumers about a Western Persona 5 Scramble localization and sees overwhelming demand, it takes an extremely long time to get the Western version out. Atlus would really be stepping out of its comfort zone if it turned away from the regular staircase of Persona progression and focused on the Phantom Thieves for a while, so it’s much more likely to preserve its traditions and get Persona 6 on the PS5.
There is one consolation prize that Atlus could offer diehard P5 fans, and that still has to do with misfortune. Thanks to a report on Atlus’ remaining fiscal year, it looks like Persona 5 Scramble might not be out until after February 2021 in the west. The delay is frustrating, considering how long the localization has already taken. However, Atlus might be intentionally delaying the release date to package it with a big reveal. Atlus could have decided that it can reveal the Western version of Persona 5 Scramble and the brand new Persona 6 at the same time, and that kind of package presentation would simultaneously celebrate Joker and the Phantom Thieves and make for a smooth transition into the next generation of Persona.
Of course, unless Persona 6 actually amounts to Persona 5-2, that still means Persona 5 Scramble will be the last experience fans get with Joker. This game is looking more and more like a final loose end that Atlus just needs to tie up to appease its fans and give Joker one last international hurrah. It’s painful that the theoretical finale of the Phantom Thieves is getting dragged out so long. On the other hand, though, it does mean that fans get to spend a little more time in the golden age of Persona 5. If Atlus really wants to put the Thieves to rest and make something new in Persona 6, it knows it has big shoes to fill. The way it continues to handle Persona 5 Scramble will send major messages about Joker’s future.
Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers released in Japan for PS4 and Nintendo Switch on February 20th, 2020.
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