Persona 5 - the face of fans finding out it was coming to PS4
Persona 5 – the face of fans finding out it was coming to PS4

Much anticipated Japanese role-player Persona 5 will not be last gen-only, and is also coming out for the PlayStation 4 – but not until next year.

Announced almost a year ago now, there was a lot of disappointment that Persona 5 would only be coming out for the PlayStation 3. Although that should’ve come as no surprise as Persona 4 was also a generation behind when it came out.

But publisher Atlus has had a change of heart and the game will now be released on PlayStation 4 as well.

Although that’s great news, details on the game are still extremely sparse and the trailer below shows no gameplay footage and offers no real hint about the story – other than it’ll have the same basic concept of teenagers able to access a supernatural world unbeknown to the rest of the modern world.

The trailer lists the release date as 2015, which presumably goes for both the PlayStation 3 and 4. That actually counts as a delay as the PlayStation 3 version was supposed to be out in Japan this Christmas, although it was never due in the West until next year.

The Persona series is technically a spin-off from the already well-regarded Shin Megami Tensei franchise, but since Persona 3 the games have proven so popular that they’ve become one of Altus’ most important series – and in the West the most critically acclaimed Japanese role-players of the modern era.

As mentioned almost nothing is known about the plot of Persona 5, with director Katsura Hashino commenting only that it focuses on ‘themes of restraint and liberation in modern society’.

‘I feel that in today’s world, there’s no shortage of people that are bored and discontent with their lives. They’re at a dead end, chained down to a world of which they resent being a part,’ he said earlier in the year.

‘Persona 5, in that sense, is a game about freedom, the kind that those sorts of people haven’t had living in the real world’.

Persona 5 is expected to be be unveiled properly at the Tokyo Game Show later this month, the trailer below was revealed at a pre-show event hosted by Sony.

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