In 2011, after the Great East Japan Earthquake, game director Katsura Hashino made a pivotal design decision forPersona 5. Initially, the fifthPersonagame was meant to be a more globe-trotting adventure. The game would still follow the picaresque fiction style that inspired the game, but the setting would be centralized on Japan due to many societal and personal factors. Hashino has since moved on to a completely new project, but there’s a high likelihood thatPersona 6will expand beyond the borders of Japan.
Even though Katsura Hashino no longer helms the franchise, the desire to expand beyond Japan still remains among the new and existing team members, some of whom have been working onPersonafor years. That originalPersona 5pitch may have been an early development concept, but remnants of this framework still permeate throughout the final game as well as thePersona 5 Scramblespin-off/sequel. While the Phantom Thieves story will be contained toPersona 5’s universe,Persona 6may continue the idea of expanding outside of Japan.
Persona 5 Originally Was Supposed To Go Further
During an interview with Japanese media outlet 4gamer.net, Hashino had mentioned thatone of the first design concepts forPersona 5was centered around the idea of a “backpacker-like trip around the world, with the theme of a journey to find myself.” Before the Phantom Thieves were ever a concept forPersona 5, the idea of returning to the high schooler setting wasn’t part of Hashino’s initial plan. However, after the Japanese earthquake in 2011, Hashino felt a personal shift in perspective that carried over intoPersona 5’s design foundation.
The core concepts of self-discovery and personal journey still remained inPersona 5, but the game returned home to Japan for reasons both personal and circumstantial. Rather than following the original design pitch, Hashino believed the setting and characters needed to be re-focused on Japan. This was due to a lot of factors, not only as an act of Japanese pride, but also one of criticism.Many ofPersona 5’s themeswere also based on social change in the wake of disaster, something Japan battled with for some time after the earthquake. Many of the government actions in response to the quake, and their effects on people, heavily inspiredPersona 5’s political story.
The Desire to Expand in Persona 5 Scramble
Interestingly enough, that desire to expandPersonabeyond Japan’s borders has still lingered long afterPersona 5’s release.This is most evidenced byPersona 5 Scramble, the spin-off that partially acts as a sequel to the original game. Joker and the Phantom Thieves, while on summer vacation, end up exploring places like Okinawa, Sendai, and Sapporo throughout their adventure. The whole game is based around a camping road trip they had all planned together, among other supernatural happenings in the Metaverse that forces the Phantom Thieves to get the band back together again.
GrantedPersona 5 Scramblealso doesn’t leave Japan, but spends a lot of the game’s time outside of Tokyo, the main setting ofPersona 5. Not to mentionthe palaces throughoutPersona 5, like mostPersonagames before it, generally depict places outside of Japan like medieval castles or Egyptian pyramids. Even if the metaphysical locations are put aside, it’s clearPersonadoesn’t want to be constrained to just Japanese society. The series has never been restricted to Japan either, it just so happens that the game’s home development country was most relatable to its primarily eastern audience.Persona 6could easily buck this trend, and based onScramble, it clearly wants to.
Now is the Perfect Time to Improve Persona
Even though the original director is no longer with thePersonaseries, Hashino’s concepts could have made a lasting impression on the rest of thePersonateam. Now that a relatively new team is helming thePersonafranchise (granted with several veterans still on the team), now is as good a time as ever to reinvent thePersonaseries.Hashino was game director and producer for thePersonaseries for 13 years, starting withPersona 3and ending withPersona 5. NowPersona 5 Royal’s director Daiki Itoh, or anyone else for that matter, could lead the future of the franchise.
Something new for the setting ofPersonawould make a lot of sense at this point. Now that the series has seen widespread acclaim withPersona 5, the series has a chance not only to improve itself, but also innovate the formula. As much asPersona 5modernizes the series in a big way, the game’s massive success presents an opportunity forPersonato move forward as well. Whether it’s adding different elements to increase the immersion of the social simulator (like improving the inclusivity of romances), or taking even more steps to improve the JRPG systems. However, even above those changes,Personawill almost certainly expand from its Japanese roots.
While the long wait forPersona 6is still underway, there’s a lot still left to do that could improvePersonaeven more.
