This week’s issue of Weekly Famitsu magazine #1953 includes an 8-page interview between Persona series creative producer Kazuhisa Wada and Tales of series IP producer Yusuke Tomizawa, discussing the history of both franchises as they celebrate their 30th anniversary.
Persona Series History
- Wada first started getting seriously involved with Persona starting with Persona 3, and at the time, one of the IP Atlus was aiming for was Tales of. They watched it with the feeling that “we have to become like that too.”
- The original Persona 3 had a focus on UI because the team didn’t have a budget to push other resources, so they figured that by deliberately investing in that aspect of the game, they could create a sense of unity that would elevate the rest of the game. Tomizawa praises the series dynamic UI, and Wada jokes that while it was originally a cost-cutting measure, it’s now costing the team more.
- Persona 4: The Animation first aired in 2011, before the release of Persona 4 Golden in 2012, which was not part of the plan and P4G was supposed to launch earlier. The team weren’t able to deliberately coordinate the timing between anime and game releases at the time, but Wada believes it ended up working in their favor.
- Prior to Persona 5‘s release, the staff were more anxious than excited. The 2010s was a turbulent time for Atlus, with Atlus as an entity disappearing within Index Holdings in 2010, the parent company’s bankruptcy in 2013, and Atlus’ revival under Sega in 2014. All the while, P5 was being developed to finally release in 2016. Wada states that they would play Kamoshida’s Palace over and over again, losing their sense of whether it was actually good or bad.
Persona Development and Strengthening the IP
- Despite the Persona series’ growing popularity overseas, Atlus doesn’t think about international audiences too much since the series is set in modern day Japan. For fantasy games like Metaphor: ReFantazio, they have to give a lot more thought to cultural adaptation. There’ve always been messages from overseas fans, but the volume has increased significantly in recent years and, because of that, the team has more opportunities to use that data and incorporate it into their projects more easily.
- When producing an IP, Wada believes it first involves imagining the form he would want to see from a user’s perspective and then, based on how the company is currently structured, building a plan to achieve that vision. To do that, it’s crucial for the team to clearly understand the core aspects of the IP in question. It’s important to consider what to add, but it’s even more important to know what they absolutely can’t lose. Preserving that balance is what leads to the IP’s sustainable expansion and growth.
- With the mindset of expanding and growing IP, it’s important to prepare and launch content from various angles. This includes remakes (Persona 4 Revival), live service titles (Persona 5: The Phantom X) and, of course, new entries in the main series (Persona 6).
- Wada: “The gaps between releases are getting longer every year, aren’t they? That’s why we have to constantly look several years ahead and work backward from there, otherwise we won’t be able to maintain the franchise’s strength. If we just focus on the immediate future, we’ll certainly start to lose momentum, so we’re taking steps to prevent that from happening. We’re working our hardest to ensure we can deliver the future of ‘Persona’ that everyone is looking forward to.”