Persona 5 Scramble Was Originally Planned as ‘Persona Warriors’

Persona 5 Scramble is a sequel to Persona 5 but it could have been a Persona Warriors, instead. Key staff from Atlus and Koei Tecmo talked about its development in the latest issue of Dengeki PlayStation. [Thanks, Ryokutya2089.]

Here are highlights from the interview:

Kazutoshi Sekiguchi, Koei Tecmo Director: “Actually, development [on Persona 5 Scramble] started on the same month Persona 5 released.”

Persona 5 first released in Japan on September 15, 2016, so it was somewhere around that time.

Daisuke Kaneda, Atlus Director: “The scale of it all was so large that it took a while to get things moving after we began talking.”

Kazutoshi Sekiguchi: “Our company has many Persona fans, at first they proposed a ‘Persona Musou (Warriors)‘. However, in the story-filling stage, we decided to make it into something that delves deeper into the characters of Persona 5. After some twists-and-turns, it ended up becoming an action RPG that told a continuation of Persona 5.”

Daisuke Kaneda: “The entire story was put together by the Persona Team. The very first plan was proposed by Koei Tecmo. And after several meetings, we’ve made it into a story that delivers a Persona-like theme and message.”

Mumon Usuda, Atlus: “In any case, we wanted to make a fun story. The previous game, Persona 5, was more serious and we didn’t get to see many instances of the Phantom Thieves having fun. We wanted to give a different taste where the Phantom Thieves solve cases while having fun.”

Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers releases for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch in Japan on February 20, 2020. Check out its opening movie in our previous report. You can also check out its latest trailer here.