Atlus raised some eyebrows during E3 last week, after their highly anticipated RPG sequel, Persona 5 was entirely absent from the show, with the company instead shifting focus to upcoming rhythm-based PlayStation Vita spin-off, Persona 4: Dancing All Night at the expo. This also led to speculation that Persona 5 may have been quietly delayed, and Atlus simply didn’t feature the game, since it wasn’t far along enough to be in working order.
Well, apparently, that’s half-true. After being questioned about Persona 5’s absence in the wake of E3, an Atlus rep did confirm that the game wasn’t ready for public demonstration, at least not for English-speaking audiences, and that’s why it skipped E3. Despite that however, the speculation that Persona 5 has been delayed out of this year for Western audiences is apparently incorrect, and the plan is still to release Persona 5 in North America at the very least, by the end of this year, despite the game still not being available for pre-order at most major retailers, nor the PlayStation Store.
This is fueling speculation that Atlus may be grooming Persona 5 for a simultaneous release in North America and Japan, and possibly European territories. It’s believed that this plan may be unveiled at either Gamescom or Tokyo Game Show, in August or September, respectively. Currently, both Japan and North America are targeting Q4 2015 launch windows for Persona 5, though PAL territories are still up in the air, and they may not see the game until 2016.
Persona 5 was originally planned to debut in Japan last year, and North America early this year, back when it was exclusively coming to PlayStation 3. The belated announcement of a new, visually upgraded PlayStation 4 port to launch alongside the PlayStation 3 version in all territories however led to Persona 5 being pushed back to later this year, where it’s still apparently sitting pretty, despite Atlus being a bit media-shy with it. Still, at least we know that the plan is still to get the game both on the retail shelf and on the PlayStation Store selection in North America, before the year is up!
Keep divining Eggplante for all news and updates on the Persona series.