Persona 5 has managed to remain in the minds of the gaming community for the last four years. That’s both fitting for a game about infiltrating peoples’ minds and generally appropriate, considering the game’s achievements. Persona was already a pretty storied game series before Persona 5 arrived, but there was just something about Persona 5 that changed everything. The Phantom Thieves have gotten tons of adoration over the last few years. Thanks to that, there’s been tons of additional content involving them. It won’t be long before Persona 5 Royal‘s global release turns a year old, and Persona 5 Strikers gets an international release in just a few weeks. There’s more than enough content out right now to keep the Phantom Thieves alive.
However, the Thieves’ longevity resides not just within the Persona line. They’ve expanded out into lots of other media too. Joker has been leading his crew of vigilante misfits into all sorts of other media since Persona 5 took the world by storm. There’s just something special about Joker and his crew that makes them hard to let go of, and because of that, they keep breaking boundaries and exceeding expectations. Atlus has already gone a long way in capitalizing on Joker’s popularity — so much so that one wonders just how much more mileage Atlus wants to try to get out of the character.
When writing a silent protagonist, there are a few options available to game developers as far as characterization is concerned. Perhaps the easiest is locking the player in first person and offering no dialogue and minimal body language to express the player characters’ feelings, channeling dialogue and tone through surrounding characters. Oftentimes custom characters end up in this niche, the player’s own expressiveness filling in for the character’s lack of intrinsic personality. Joker, however, is no custom character, and the player certainly isn’t isolated from him visually. That means Atlus had to decide during development how much personality he needed.
At a glance, Joker’s personality is fairly basic, as one might expect. However, there’s a lot that can be gleaned from his dialogue options and body language, as well as his limited spoken lines. Underneath his soft-spoken and unassuming exterior, there’s a fierce rebel and a cunning leader with a flair for the dramatic. It’s a diverse and complicated personality, but that’s part of what makes Joker strikingly relatable despite being a silent protagonist. He seems both perfectly approachable and like a hero worth rooting for.
Atlus is keenly aware of how fondly fans look on Joker too. Persona 5 Royal wasn’t too much of a surprise, since Atlus has shown it likes releasing expanded Persona games before. However, Persona 5 Strikers was a completely new venture that surprised everyone. A Dynasty Warriors crossover was pretty impossible to predict, yet Atlus clearly had faith that the Phantom Thieves were complex and flexible enough to thrive in a totally different game genre. As if that wasn’t a surprise enough, though, there’s a veritable deluge of other cameos the Phantom Thieves have made. Joker is nothing if not adventurous.
Probably the most famous and groundbreaking appearance Joker has made outside Persona was his invitation to join Super Smash Bros Ultimate. Joker wasn’t just a DLC fighter — he was the very first non-Nintendo character announced for a Smash Ultimate DLC. That wasn’t just remarkable because he came first. Persona 5 fans had little hope that he would make it in, since Persona 5 wasn’t anywhere close to the Switch yet. Naturally, it was a total shock when fans found out Joker and Arsene were the first guests to leap into the fray. As significant as that appearance was, that was only one of many.
Atlus allowed Joker and company to make many appearances in its other products. For instance, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore offered costumes based on Persona 5, and Joker appears as a playable character in a DLC for puzzle-platformer Catherine: Full Body. Atlus’ parent company Sega also opened its arms to Joker, allowing the Phantom Thieves into projects such as Phantasy Star Online 2 and Sonic Forces. Joker even transcended the comfort of Atlus and Sega’s territory, going as far out as Granblue Fantasy and Dragon’s Dogma Online, among others.
These guest appearances pile up really quickly. At the end of the day, they all add up to one thing: publicity. Persona has historically been targeted at a Japanese audience with Japan getting early releases and consistently performing strongly there. Now, however, there’s a lot of attention on the franchise internationally, as blockbuster sales indicate. Joker’s appearances don’t just speak to the popularity of Persona 5, but to the new affection for the franchise as a whole. Lots of games are interested in making reference to Persona 5, which acknowledges the universal love for Joker and the Phantom Thieves and Atlus’ eagerness to build on that.
One has to wonder what Atlus wants to do with Joker and Persona 5‘s success from here, if anything. It seems reasonable to expect Persona 6 to be revealed someday soon. The question is if Atlus wants this game to continue Joker’s adventures, with or without Persona 5 Strikers, or move on and give Persona 6 another original plot. On the one hand, it would seem a little wasteful to abandon Joker now when he still has so much clout. On the other hand, if Atlus dedicates itself solely to making games about the Phantom Thieves, it puts itself at risk of stagnating creatively. Persona has many traditions it likes to pass on, but the cast of characters always comes and goes.
It’s possible that Atlus will find a way to compromise. Maybe sometime in 2021, Persona 6 will start a new adventure while Atlus announces another Persona 5 spinoff on the side. That might be a lot of work, but seeing as Persona is getting bigger and bigger, the franchise’s 25th anniversary this year seems like the perfect time to expand. No matter what Atlus is planning, lots of fans aren’t ready to let go of Joker and his team yet. If Joker’s journey is coming to an end, at least fans are never far from him. Persona 5 has serious replay value, and in lots of games, there’s Persona 5 references and content that’ll keep celebrating the series for a very long time.
Persona 5 is available now for PS3 and PS4. Persona 5 Royal is available for PS4.
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