The Persona 5X team talks new content and “erasing your memories” of the original game

Persona 5: The Phantom X‘s global version has just reached its sixth month in the mobile games market, and the team is providing lots of fun to celebrate. I had the opportunity to interview Sega’s operational director and development producer, as well as the chief producer from Atlus, and asked them about plans for the milestone, whether a console release might be on the horizon, and whether those Lufel rumors have any weight.

It’s worth noting that the three answered my questions in Japanese, so we used a translator, but they were very insightful, so I hope you enjoy reading what they had to say.

I was curious about the motivations for making a mobile game out of Persona, a series that has shied away from the platform in the past. Yuta Sakai had this to say on the matter: “Before P5X, we’ve had various Persona games on many different platforms except for mobile, and we’ve had requests for more platforms so that the series would have more reach, so that’s the main reason why we decided to make a mobile game.”

I know a lot of us are eager to know whether there are plans to expand Persona 5X to other platforms beyond mobile, and while it seems like there may be something on the horizon, nothing is set in stone yet. Sakai states, “It’s not clear-cut on when or where it would be ready, but we do want to try our best to create the console versions… It’s in the corner of our minds.”

In terms of the challenges that they face with console, Sakai-san continues, “For Microsoft and Sony, it wouldn’t be too difficult to make a console version. But for Nintendo, they have a few rules that might make it difficult for us to have P5X on it. But we are continuing our research and development so that we can get more players and reach more audiences through various platforms as well.” That being said, the team is prioritizing the current versions that are out. Sakai-san goes on to say, “Most of our focus currently is on the development and improvement of our current mobile and PC versions.”

Persona 5X in English has over a million downloads on the Google Play Store alone, an impressive number given that the translated version of the game came out only six months ago. It’s clearly a hit, but I wondered how the team decided what elements of the original game would make it into the mobile version.

Yuta-san answers my question succinctly, honing in on one particular feature. “In Persona 5, there was a whole year where you would have actual dates, and you spend each day differently. But when we made the mobile version, we had to get rid of that. The main reason was that if we stuck to that, and had real dates in-game, that would mean other players who started playing the game later would miss out on earlier dates.”

Do they miss the calendar? It doesn’t appear so, as Sakai continues, “We have also run some seasonal events like summer to make sure that players still have that real-time feeling of playing a Persona game as well.”

I definitely do, and as a big fan of Persona 5, I wanted to hear a bit more from the team about story-specific differences between the games, so I asked the team about the involvement of the original Phantom Thieves. “If we just made Persona 5 but on smartphones, it wouldn’t fit the platform, and it wouldn’t work very well. So when we moved forward with the development, we decided we needed a new cast of characters, fresh faces to help push the story in the game, a brand new story in the game,” Yuta-san says.

“The key thing that we focused on in a discussion with the entire team is that we wanted to make sure that even people who have played Persona 5 before can feel the thrill of playing Persona 5 all over again, erase your memories and play the game again.”

There’s certainly enough in P5X that I’ve found to be similar to the original game, but one huge difference is the existence of limited time events, making the game feel interactive, dynamic, and community-oriented compared to the main line of Persona games. I asked the team if they would speak a little bit about what we can expect from the six-month anniversary events.

Yuta-san says, “So our first main event for our six-month anniversary that’s coming up is going to be Justin and Caroline. Within the Persona series, this is going to be the first time you’re going to be able to play as a Velvet Room Attendant. So we really think that is going to be something that is big for all Persona fans.”

Yosuke Uda chimes in with some extra information. “Some additional things that we’re going to do for the half-anniversary are a bunch of events and campaigns, because we really want to have that festive feel to it as well. The first thing is that we’re going to be able to get a lot of contract pools compared to the other versions. We’re also going to add a feature that gives you your half-year in review. For example, it will tell you how many times you have used a particular character and on what stages.”

This all sounds pretty fun to me, and though it’s unusual to have a half-year anniversary event, I get the impression that the team wants its Western fans to feel as involved in the action as the fans who’ve already had the game in Japan and China for longer. I asked Jun Matsunaga what the translation process was like and if any lines felt crucial to get right in translation.

He answered very eloquently, telling me that the number one thing the team sought to get right was the voicelines of, and interactions between, beloved characters from the original game. “The love that the fans have for those characters has been built up for over ten years now, and each of the characters when they appear have their catchphrases, their famous voice lines, and interactions with each other as well. Those parts are what we particularly spent a lot of time and paid a lot of attention to when doing the localization from Japanese to English.” This makes sense to me, as some of the most iconic parts of the game are the battle voice lines.

Demand online is high for languages like Spanish, French, and others, so I also queried whether they have plans to translate P5X into other languages. Matsunaga-san is “sorry to disappoint” on this front. “Although we know that there’s a demand for it and a lot of fans want it, we currently don’t have the capacity, and it’s not logistically possible.”

He goes on to give a reasonable explanation, saying that due to P5X being a live service game, it’s difficult for the team to be able to keep up with fortnightly updates. “We wouldn’t be able to maintain our pace, our development schedule if we added more languages.”

Keen to give his opinion on the half-anniversary event, Matsunaga-san also adds that the Justin and Caroline event is the first time that the team have attempted to do a simultaneous update between all the versions. “It’s a lot of work. And it’s definitely not something we can do often”, but they wanted to do it so that Western players “don’t feel like they got left behind.” A sweet sentiment.

Given that they seem very in touch and keen to connect with their playerbase, I wanted to know if they had seen the ‘Lufel is Lucifer’ conspiracy theories and if they could confirm or deny the allegations. As soon as the question was translated, all three developers and the translator burst into laughter. “We can’t comment on that, but we enjoy seeing players theorise on that, so please feel free to theorise on that even more,” Yuta-san says.

And finally, I asked them to provide their Western fans with a message: Yuta-san sends his warm wishes. “To our Western friends, we are extremely happy to be able to do this simultaneously-released character and event at this time to be able to have everyone enjoy it at the same time. So if you’re interested in the character, then we’d be happy if you would pull for Justin and Caroline as well, and we hope you continue to enjoy Episode 5X.”

Thank you once again to Yuta Sakai, Jun Matsunaga, and Yosuke Uda for their time.