The Persona series is now truly multiplatform, and I couldn't be happier about it
While Persona 5 first launched on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 all the way back in spring 2017 (technically fall 2016 in Japan), this past week marks the completion of a major journey worthy of this lengthy epic of an RPG. As of Friday, October 21, Persona 5 Royal—an updated version of the game with even more content—is now available on almost any platform you could hope for: Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S and X.
That's not all either. Persona 4 Golden, arguably the best entry in the series, will be releasing on Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S and X in early 2023. (Golden already hit PC in 2020.) On that same date in January, Persona 3 Portable will hit all of those platforms as well, finally becoming available in decidedly non-portable form.
So what's the big deal? The big deal is that Persona, as with many of the best Japanese RPGs, has long been a Sony console/handheld-exclusive series. And don't get me wrong; I don't have a huge problem with that, as I've purchased every Sony console thus far, and I would probably keep purchasing them just for the chance to play future Persona games. But in my opinion that's not ideal for the series nor for gamers.
The Persona games are masterpieces, and they deserve to be played by the widest audience possible—regardless of where that audience is. The shift to make Persona titles widely accessible across platforms means exposing an even greater number of people to the joys of these ridiculous, wonderful games. And that goes double for PC, a platform that is key for accessibility and preservation of games long-term. We can never be sure if future console generations will be backwards compatible, but hardcore gamers will always find a way to make old PC games work on future PC hardware.
The best part is, it's not just Persona benefiting from this new attitude. Atlus's most recent big RPG release, Soul Hackers 2, launched simultaneously worldwide on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S and X. My personal hope is that other future games that are part of or spinning off from Atlus's beloved Shin Megami Tensei series will be multiplatform from the jump—including the inevitable Persona 6.
(Sidenote: It was eight years between the initial release of Persona 4 in 2008 and the initial release of Persona 5 in 2016. So really, assuming a similar gap for Persona 6, it shouldn't be too much longer... Right?)
Even moving beyond Atlus altogether, the last five or so years has seen more and more Japanese developers and publishers embrace Steam (and PC gaming generally) as a new frontier for an entire genre of games that was once considered too niche to be worth porting to different platforms. Turns out that even a niche audience can become pretty sizable the games in question are readily available wherever players exist!
As a lifelong fan of Japanese RPGs, the multiplatform trend has been one of the best upgrades the genre has ever seen, and now that one of that genre's best series of all times has joined the party, it feels even more like it's just the norm that should be expected going forward. Here's hoping that the majority of future Atlus games (and JRPGs in general) come to PC and every major console of the moment.
And to those Xbox, Switch, and PC gamers who are now checking out Persona 5 Royal for the first time: Enjoy it! You're about to experience something very special for the next 120-plus hours.
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