Setting and characters

Persona 5 takes place within the Persona universe, revolving around a group of high school students who harness Personas, physical manifestations of their inner psyche.^[18] The story begins in April "20XX" and spans roughly a year. It is set in modern-day Tokyo and features several real-world locations, including Akihabara, Shinjuku, and Shibuya.^[19] A major setting throughout the game is Shujin Academy, a high school that the protagonist attends.^[2][20][21] The second major location is the "Metaverse", a supernatural realm consisting of the physical manifestations of humanity's subconscious desires. In the Metaverse, people with corrupted desires form their own unique "Palace," which is modeled after their distorted perception of a place in the real world, along with a Shadow version of themselves (their true self) possessing a "Treasure" symbolic of their desires.^[20][22][23] Returning from earlier entries is the Velvet Room, a place that exists for the growth of Persona users and shifts appearance depending on the current guest; in Persona 5, it takes the form of a prison.^[15]

The player character is a silent protagonist, a commonplace feature in the Persona series, codenamed Joker. He becomes the leader of a vigilante group known as the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, who change the hearts of criminals and other malevolent people through the Metaverse.^[21][24] He is joined by school delinquent Ryuji Sakamoto, fashion model Ann Takamaki, and Morgana, a mysterious cat-like creature. As the game progresses, the group recruits more members, including art prodigy Yusuke Kitagawa, student council president Makoto Niijima, hikikomori computer hacker Futaba Sakura, and cultured corporate heiress Haru Okumura.^[2][21][24] Also interacting with Joker are high school detective Goro Akechi, public prosecutor and Makoto's older sister Sae Niijima, and Igor and his two assistants Caroline and Justine, who are residents of the Velvet Room.^[2][25]

Plot

Much of the story is told through flashbacks while Sae Niijima interrogates the protagonist. After preventing an assault, he is framed for assaulting the man responsible and put on probation for a year, resulting in expulsion from his school. He is sent to Tokyo to stay with family friend Sojiro Sakura and attend Shujin Academy during his year-long probation. After his arrival, he is drawn into the Velvet Room, where Igor warns him that he must be rehabilitated to avoid future ruin and grants him access to a supernatural mobile app. This leads him into the Metaverse and the Palace of the school's abusive volleyball coach Suguru Kamoshida, where he meets Morgana. Morgana informs him of the ability to change wicked people's hearts by stealing their "Treasure," the emotional root of their behavior and desires, from the Palaces ruled by their Shadow selves. The protagonist assumes the codename Joker and, together with Morgana and two fellow students, reforms Kamoshida.

The group forms the Phantom Thieves of Hearts to steal corruption from the hearts of adults to reform the city, and slowly learns of a broader conspiracy to influence the hearts of Tokyo. They are joined along the way by Sae's sister Makoto, the president of the school's student council who is assigned to spy on them but joins after being blackmailed by a criminal; Sojiro's adopted daughter Futaba Sakura, who became depressed after the conspiracy murdered her mother and blamed her using a forged suicide note; and Haru Okumura, who rebels against her billionaire father's attempts to control her life and mistreatment of his employees. Over time, the Phantom Thieves attract the attention of the public and the police, including Sae and Goro Akechi. The Phantom Thieves' popularity plummets after a masked assassin frames them for the death of Haru's father. While pursuing the conspiracy, Akechi joins the group and convinces them to change Sae's heart.

After infiltrating Sae's Palace, Joker is captured by the police, and Sae interrogates him despite being removed from the case. Joker convinces Sae of the truth. Akechi is revealed to be the assassin and attempts to kill Joker, but the Phantom Thieves use the Metaverse to fake Joker's death. Aided by Sae and Sojiro, the Phantom Thieves go undercover and learn the conspiracy's leader is politician Masayoshi Shido, who was the one who framed and pressed charges against Joker. He has been using Akechi's Metaverse ability to remove obstacles in his path toward becoming Prime Minister and imposing his reforms on Japan. When the Phantom Thieves infiltrate Shido's Palace, they face Akechi, who reveals himself as Shido's illegitimate son and plans to get revenge on Shido for abandoning him and his late mother. Once defeated, Akechi sacrifices himself to protect the Phantom Thieves from a group of enemies and allow them to defeat Shido. Despite Shido's arrest and confession, the public's opinion of him remains unchanged, and Shido may be released through the manipulation of his allies.

The Phantom Thieves infiltrate the depths of Mementos, the Palace of everyone's hearts, to steal the Treasure at its core. Inside, they discover that the public is in chaos and has chosen to give up their autonomy. The Phantom Thieves are ejected from Mementos by the Treasure itself, manifested as the Holy Grail, and vanish after Metaverse merges with reality. Upon awakening in the Velvet Room, Joker confronts Igor, Caroline, and Justine. Caroline and Justine regain their memories and integrate into Lavenza, their proper form. Lavenza reveals that the Igor in the Velvet Room until this point is actually Yaldabaoth, the God of Control, who imprisoned the actual Igor. Yaldabaoth, Mementos' Treasure made sentient, was created from humanity's wish to give up control and be free from suffering. Through a wager made with Igor over humanity's goals, Yaldabaoth had given Joker and Akechi their abilities to see the influence of their actions on society while steering the wager in his favor.

Yaldabaoth offers Joker to return the world to its previous state at the cost of the world's freedom. If Joker accepts the offer, an alternate ending happens where the Phantom Thieves return to fame at the cost of humanity's free will. If Joker rejects the offer, he reunites with the rest of the Phantom Thieves and fights Yaldabaoth, and as his confidants rally the support of the people, they rebel against Yaldabaoth's control and allow Joker to awaken his ultimate persona, Satanael, to destroy Yaldabaoth and the Metaverse. After Yaldabaoth's defeat, Joker turns himself in to the police for Shido to be prosecuted. While Joker is incarcerated, the rest of the Phantom Thieves and his confidants help secure evidence of his innocence in the assault charge, leading to his conviction being overturned. By spring, Joker's friends drive him back to his hometown.

Story and themes

The original story concept was written by Hashino, while the scenario was co-written by Shinji Yamamoto and Yuichiro Tanaka.^[40][41] The initial concept was for a storyline that diverged from the established paths of Persona 3 and 4, with "self-discovery" and "journey" being its keywords.^[35] Originally using the concept of a backpacking trip around the world as a framing device for the story, Hashino decided to refocus on Japan in the wake of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.^[32] More specifically, it has been noted that the Japanese government's actions in response to the earthquake and tsunami's fallout, along with Japanese citizens' reactions to how the government acted during that time, may have served as partial influences on the game's themes.^[42] Following that crisis and seeing how people were bonding in the face of it, Hashino decided to have the story take place solely in Japan, with the journeying being done through the ever-shifting Palaces.^[35] Ultimately, the story's central concepts were inspired by equivalent social changes he saw in modern society, particularly in Japan.^[23] Hashino also described the central theme of the game as being about freedom and how the characters attain it.^[43] He wanted to make the game more "thematically approachable" for newcomers to the series, and to be an emotional experience that left its audience with a strong sense of catharsis and the inspiration to take on problems in their lives.^[43][44]

The narrative of Persona 5 was designed like an omnibus, with the antagonists pursued by the party changing regularly.^[22] The development team has cited three main stories as inspiration, the Chinese novel Water Margin, the Japanese crime movie Hakuchuu no Shikaku, and the Spanish novel Lazarillo de Tormes.^[45] Furthermore, the setting and style was compared to picaresque fiction; the team originally asked the question of how a character like Lupin III might win appeal in modern society.^[46] This picaresque theme was carried over into the aesthetics of Persona fusion and sacrifice, which were themed after styles of capital punishment.^[6] Having a more "stereotypical" theme enabled the team to create surprising story developments, mixing contemporary drama with the setting of the Persona series. The series' recurring motif of "masks" was used more overtly in the game's plot than previous entries as well,^[47] and the game's main locations were based heavily on their real-world counterparts.^[3]

The main characters, according to Hashino, share a mindset that they "no longer have a place where they belong in society", though the events of the game give them a sense of belonging.^[24] Hashino stated that while the last few games were about the protagonists chasing the antagonists, Persona 5 would instead more prominently feature the antagonists and phenomena caused by them chasing the protagonists during the latter's activities. The characters have been described as "juvenile academics,"^[46] with their activities as thieves being part of the way they break from societal norms and express themselves. Adhering with this concept, the game's main aim was to show the characters finding the courage to go outside the normal limits of society as set by previous generations.^[46] In contrast to previous Persona casts, the party of Persona 5 willingly embrace the unfolding unusual events in their role of masked vigilantes rather than being dragged into them.^[24] The cast was originally going to be larger with character Hifumi Togo becoming a Phantom Thief, but as the story was already very large, she was relegated to an optional role as part of the Confidant system.^[48] Technological advances such as smartphones and the use of social media were integrated into both the story and gameplay due to their growing prevalence in modern society and how the public responds to real-world scandals.^[37][42]

The characters' initial Personas (Arsène, Captain Kidd, Carmen, Zorro, Goemon, Johanna, Necronomicon, Milady, Robin Hood, and Cendrillon) were themed after outlaws and picaresque heroes to reflect the function and dominant suppressed passions forming the Palace, and also represent aspects of their owners' personalities.^{[2][21][22][24][49]} Joker's initial Persona was originally the German demon Mephistopheles, but was changed to Arsène as the latter character better fit the game's themes.^[48] The cast's ultimate Personas (Satanael, Seiten Taisei, Hecate, Mercurius, Kamu Susano-o, Anat, Prometheus, Astarte, Loki and Vanadis) were based on mythical beings who act as tricksters or rebels.^[41][49] The three main inspirations behind Joker's alter ego were Arsène Lupin, The Fiend with Twenty Faces, and Japanese outlaw hero Ishikawa Goemon.^[45] The name of Joker's high school, "Shujin", was chosen because it was a homonym of Shūjin (囚人), the Japanese word for "prisoner".^[50] Following a trend from earlier entries, the Velvet Room assistants are named after characters from the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.^[15]

The use of adults as antagonists was a more overt expression of narrative elements previously explored in Persona 4. The relation to police activities was also carried over from Persona 4, but this time with the role of protagonists and antagonists reversed.^[35] Several writers have highlighted the parallels between the game's various antagonists with real incidents and figures in different sectors of Japanese society (e.g. political, corporate, academic), and how the game's story and characters serve as social commentary on life in Japan.^[42][51] The game's villains and protagonists were also constructed to be parallels of each other, both groups being misfits trying to shape a world they saw as unsatisfactory or corrupted. This was intended to create moral ambiguity about the Phantom Thieves' actions, causing the player to question their concept of justice and their mission as a whole.^[32] In addition, the way a vocal minority online could draw attention to and shift public opinion on events and scandals in the news was cited as an inspiration for the ambiguous nature of the Phantom Thieves' actions.^[36]

Art design

The art director was Masayoshi Suto, whose most notable work on earlier games included the user interface (UI) displays.^[52] Shigenori Soejima, who had worked on the last two main-series Persona games, returned as character designer.^[39] The art design reflects the picaresque theme aimed for by the rest of the team.^[52] Aesthetically, the team felt that they were picking up where Persona 4 left off. Its styling presentation was an unintentional reflection on the hurdles the team needed to overcome during development.^[39] The teaser image used for the game's announcement was designed to convey a sense of the main characters' being chained down by the rules of the modern world.^[53] Soejima designed the logo to convey the high-speed existences of the young cast, while elements such as Joker's Persona Arsène were designed to appear old-fashioned by comparison. This presented challenges as Soejima needed to balance this with a strong sense of style.^[10]

Soejima was working on prospective designs for the game while Persona 4 was still in development, with his designs evolving as the story for Persona 5 came together.^[28] The first character sketches were submitted in 2012.^[54] Soejima worked closely with Hashino so the characters and environments reflected the game's themes.^[43] Due to being high school students, Soejima found it difficult to make each main character's uniform design distinctive, so he expressed their individuality through their thief costumes.^[55] Joker's design was cited by Soejima as his most challenging recent work. Joker needed to both convey a taste of the game's overall art style and to act as an avatar for the player. As the main theme and narrative of Persona 5 revolved around crime and vigilantes triggered by Joker voluntarily choosing that path, Soejima needed to convey this while allowing the character to suit whatever dialogue choices the player decided upon. Due to these difficulties, Joker was given multiple designs in a trial and error process to find the best one. As the "phantom thief" premise was a common stereotype in fiction, Soejima initially drew Joker and the main cast in a style similar to shōnen manga, but these designs were scrapped as they clashed with the Persona series' realistic aesthetics. As with previous entries, the protagonist is a silent character, so Soejima had to work out a way Joker could communicate without dialogue. His solution was to imagine him as the type of person who made plans but did not share them with others.^[56] The Persona designs, being based on characters from literature, were intended to evoke both familiarity and surprise from players. Once the names were chosen, Soejima designed the Personas based on that character.^[55] The main aim for the game's environments was to create a sense of realism, with its version of Tokyo being modeled after real world locations.^[52][57]

As the team considered previous Persona games to be "fun" but not well marketed, the UI was designed in such a way as to attract a larger, more mainstream audience.^[58] When creating the UI, Hashino wanted to demonstrate how a shift in perspective could alter a dull life into an exciting one in the context of the story. Early UI designs were so "aggressively animated" that it obscured what was happening in the game. As a result, the animations were toned down and text orientation was altered, toning down the UI's graphical elements to present a balance between user-friendliness and style.^[37] Following the respective thematic coloring of Persona 3 and 4's blue and yellow, Persona 5 uses red, which was chosen to evoke a harsh feeling.^[58][53] Because of this, Suto tested multiple font colors until settling on black and white, as it stood out best against it.^[52] Rather than the use of sub-colors like earlier entries, the UI uses only the primary red, black and white colors aside from health and magic point meters, with the menus using a special moving 3D model of Joker which changes position depending on the selected menu.^[58]

The game's animated cutscenes were produced by Production I.G and Domerica, and were directed and supervised by Toshiyuki Kono.^[10][59] Kono was contacted three and a half years before the game's completion by Hashino. Faced with the project, Kono felt a great deal of pressure in his role. Persona 5 was the first time Production I.G had worked on the series, though many staff at the studio were fans. Despite this, the studio did not change their standard animation process, focusing on characters as they had done for many of their previous projects. The most important part of the cutscenes was getting the character's expressions right, particularly when it came to the general-mute protagonist. The animated opening sequence was directed by Sayo Yamamoto.^[60] The concept behind the characters figure skating around the environment was done as a visual symbolization of the overall theme of breaking free of an oppressive force, and was similar to her work in Yuri on Ice.^[10] The scene where Joker first summons his Persona was requested by Atlus to appear "wild", which was difficult as Joker's purpose is as an extension of the player. The blue flame effects related to the Persona were not created with CGI, but hand-drawn by the animators. All the anime cutscenes together were estimated to consist of over an hour of footage.^[60]

Music

The score was composed, performed, and produced by series sound director Shoji Meguro.^[61] Further contributions, among other general sound design, was handled by Toshiki Konishi, Kenichi Tsuchiya, Atsushi Kitajoh, and Ryota Kozuka; all of them having previously worked on the series as well.^[52][61][62] Meguro was given full creative freedom to work on the soundtrack and over a roughly three-year period produced about 80% of the total tracks.^[55] Seven tracks were performed in English by Lyn (Full Name: Lyn Inaizumi), a jazz and soul music singer.^[61][62][63] Her first performance in a video game, Lyn claimed that the most difficult part of her contributions was performing a rap segment in the opening theme, "Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There".^[64] The lyrics were written by Benjamin Franklin, while the ending song, "Hoshi To Bokura To", had lyrics written in Japanese by Shigeo Komori.^[61]

To express the game's mood, Meguro incorporated strong acid jazz elements into the score.^[65] He also wanted to make the music sound more realistic than previous entries, aiming to match the visuals.^[55] Meguro also changed the way the music flowed when compared to the last two Persona games. Instead of the opening and ending themes being conglomerates of the overall score, he described the entire score as a single continuous work. A recurring musical element was described as a "do-la" syllable; the opening uses "so la re mi" on strings as a hook, which then leads into the "do-la" syllable for other tracks, including the normal battle theme. While he was creating the music, Meguro received positive comments from Hashino when he made early tracks created for an internal demo.^[52]

A three-disc soundtrack was released in Japan by Mastard Records on January 17, 2017.^[62] Upon its debut, the album reached fifth on the Oricon charts with sales of over 29,000.^[66] The album features 110 tracks with commentary from the sound team, while the cover and liner note artwork were designed by Soejima.^[67] In addition to the soundtrack, a 19-track disc featuring a selection of the game's main themes, Persona 5: Sounds of the Rebellion, was released as part of the North American and European collector's edition bundle.^[62] The complete soundtrack later received a localized English release on iTunes on April 18, 2017, and on vinyl later that year by iam8bit.^[68][69]

Persona 5 Royal

Persona 5 Royal, released in Japan as Persona 5: The Royal, is an enhanced version of the game in a similar vein to Persona 4 Golden. This version features an additional Phantom Thief member named Kasumi Yoshizawa, a new Palace, a new area of the city (Kichijōji), new music, additional plot and social elements, a playable third semester, and support for the PlayStation 4 Pro, alongside many other changes and additions.^[101] In a first for the series, Royal features subtitles in French, German, Italian, and Spanish.^[102] It features a new opening sequence directed by Yuichiro Hayashi and produced by MAPPA,^[103] and as with the original game, Domerica co-produced the new anime cutscenes.^[59] Atlus first teased the game as Persona 5 R in December 2018, with a full reveal in April 2019.^[104] It was released for the PlayStation 4 in Japan on October 31, 2019, and worldwide on March 31, 2020.^[105][106] The game was also released for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on October 21, 2022.^{[107][108][109]} These versions were ported by Atlus owner Sega.^[110]

Sega published Royal in Europe and Australia, taking over from Deep Silver who published the original in those regions.^[111] Upon release, Royal received numerous character costume sets and Personas as paid DLC. Costumes include those based on Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight and Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth.^[112] Additionally, Kasumi received her own costume bundle.^[113] Personas added include those from Persona 3 and 4.^[114] DLC adding additional battles against the protagonist of Persona 3 and protagonist of Persona 4 was released.^[112] All DLC from the original game was also made available as a free download for owners of Persona 5 Royal.^[115] The paid DLC created for Royal was included for free in the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S versions.^[116][117] The game supports Xbox Play Anywhere on Microsoft platforms, but the PlayStation 5 version does not offer an upgrade path or save data transfer from the PlayStation 4 version.^[118]

Royal

Persona 5 Royal received "universal acclaim" from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic,^[120] garnering an even higher score than the original.^[119] The game is the third-highest-rated PlayStation 4 game on Metacritic alongside Naughty Dog's The Last of Us Remastered.^[166] IGN listed it as one of the best contemporary role-playing games.^[167] Famitsu praised Royal's newer elements.^[133] Michael Higham of GameSpot lauded the new music, characters, and the added third semester, saying that it solves one of the original game's shortcomings of ending abruptly. He concluded his review saying that Royal refines an already great game and builds on what was best about it with a great new story and that it is "an unforgettable and empowering RPG that should be recognized as one of the best games of our time."^[137] IGN's Leana Hafer said Royal is "a living master class in how to take an already amazing game and amp it up to the next level." She commended the improvements to the Mementos dungeons saying "The fact that Atlus has made Mementos feel so much more alive is a massive improvement by itself."^[142]

Sales

The game received a boost to pre-order sales following the delay of Final Fantasy XV, which was originally scheduled to release the same month as Persona 5.^[168] Sales went up on Amazon Japan by 450%, bringing it to second place in their best-seller charts behind Tales of Berseria.^[168] In its first week of release, the PS4 version reached first place with sales of 264,793 units, while the PS3 version reached second place with 72,974 units, resulting in total sales of 337,767 units. This made Persona 5 the fastest-selling title in the series' history, surpassing Revelations: Persona, and together with Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 pushed sales of the PS4 up significantly over the previous week.^[169][170] It was later reported by Hashino that combined physical shipments and digital sales had reached over 550,000 units by September 2016.^[81] Within three weeks of its launch in Japan, the game became Atlus' best-selling game in the country.^[171]

Outside of Japan, it was the biggest debut for any Persona game to date, with packaged sales five times better than Persona 4.^{[172][173][174]} On the PlayStation Network in April, the game topped the PS4 charts, and was third on the PS3, with Atlus announcing that it had shipped 1.5 million units worldwide.^[175][176] By November 2017, that number had risen to over two million, which made it the best-selling game in the series.^[177] The success of Persona 5 contributed to increasing annual revenue for Sega, the owner of Atlus, in 2017.^[178] At the 2018 PlayStation Awards, it received the Platinum Prize for topping a million sales in Asia.^[179] Persona 5 had sold over 3.2 million units by December 2019.^[180]

Persona 5 Royal shipped over 400,000 units in Japan by December 2019.^[181] This brought total sales of Persona 5 and Royal to over 3.6 million units worldwide by December 2019.^[182][180] In February 2020, Royal topped the Media Create sales charts in South Korea and Taiwan.^[183] In the United Kingdom, Royal debuted at number five on the sales chart.^[184] Royal had sold over 1.4 million units by July 2020, bringing the total sales of Persona 5 and Royal to over 4.6 million.^[185][186] Persona 5 and Royal had sold over 5 million units by June 2021 (when including 1.8 million Royal units).^[187]

When the game launched on additional platforms in October 2022, the Nintendo Switch version placed in second at 45,998 physical units sold, and PlayStation 5 version placed in seventh at 5,051 units during the week from October 17 to October 23, according to Japanese publication Famitsu.^[188] In the United Kingdom, the re-release of Royal debuted at number six on the sales chart, with 79% of the launch week sales coming from the Nintendo Switch version.^[189] By November 30, 2022, the PlayStation 4 version of Royal had sold 2.3 million units.^[190] By April 2023, the ports to other platforms had sold a combined 1.7 million units,^[191] bringing total sales of Royal to 4 million units, and combined sales of all versions of Persona 5 to 7.2 million units.^[187]

By December 2023, the Persona 5 series (including Royal, Dancing in Starlight, Strikers, and Tactica) surpassed 10 million units sold worldwide.^[192]

Awards

Persona 5 won two awards at the Japanese 2016 PlayStation Awards.^[193] At The Game Awards 2017, it was nominated for the show's "Game of the Year", "Best Art Direction", "Best Score/Music", and "Best Role Playing Game" awards; it ultimately won for "Best Role Playing Game".^[194] It was named the second best game of 2017 by GameSpot, behind The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.^[195] In IGN's 2017 end of year awards, it won "Best RPG",^[196] and was also nominated for "Game of the Year",^[197] "Best PlayStation 4 Game",^[198] "Best Art Direction",^[199] "Best Story",^[200] and "Best Original Music".^[201] The game was also nominated for "Best International Game" at the 2017 Ping Awards,^[202] and for the "Best Music" and "Best Style" awards by Giant Bomb.^[203][204]

It was ranked as one of the best games of 2017 by Eurogamer,^[205] Polygon,^[206] The Verge,^[207] GamesRadar+,^[208] and Electronic Gaming Monthly's end of year lists.^[209] Destructoid nominated it for "Best PS4 Game" in its 2017 Game of the Year Awards.^[210] Staff of Game Informer named it 2017's "Best Role-Playing Game", as well as "Best Narrative" and "Best Cast".^{[211][212][213]} In their reader's choice awards, it was voted "Best Role-Playing Game" and came in second for "Best Sony Game" and third for "Game of the Year".^{[214][215][216]} During the 21st Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated Persona 5 for "Role-Playing Game of the Year".^[217] The game won the Tin Pan Alley Award for "Best Music in a Game" at the New York Game Awards 2018.^[218] It was also nominated for the "Best Visual Art" award at the Game Developers Choice Awards,^[219][220] and for "Excellence in Musical Score" and "Excellence in Art" at the 2018 SXSW Gaming Awards.^[221][222] The game was nominated for "Best Game Music Cover/Remix" at the 2019 G.A.N.G. Awards.^[223]

Persona 5 Royal won the award for "Best Music" at the Famitsu Dengeki Game Awards 2019, where it was also nominated for "Best RPG".^[224] It was nominated for "Best Role Playing Game" at The Game Awards 2020,^[225] as well as "Role-Playing Game of the Year" at the 24th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards,^[226] but lost both awards to Final Fantasy VII Remake.