The Persona series needs to give us a sign of life already

With Persona 4 no-showing the Xbox event, it’s not clear what Atlus has planned for 2026

Ten years, one remake, multiple ports, a pseudo-sequel, and several spin-offs have happened since Persona 5 launched, so it feels reasonable to ask where the heck Persona 6 is. If it even exists anymore. I didn't expect to see it at the March 26 Xbox Partner Showcase. Atlus announced Persona 4 Revival with great reluctance and little fanfare at another Xbox event in June 2025, after some members of the game's original voice cast confirmed the remake's existence by saying they weren't recast.

However, Atlus still announced the remake, and publishers don't usually run marketing campaigns for two products at once. Or if they do, it doesn't go well. (Final Fantasy 16 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth launched less than a year apart, and the general consensus was too much, too soon, and too expensive.)

But then Persona 4 Revival didn't turn up at the showcase either, so I'm left wondering what Atlus is planning for 2026. We’re already getting firm dates for other studios’ summer and fall releases — will we have to wait until 2027 for the remake? The studio revealed Persona 5 five years after Persona 4's initial release, and despite several delays, it launched eight years after its predecessor. In that time, Atlus remade Persona 3 twice and Persona 4 once; ported the first three games (that's Persona and both parts of Persona 2) to different platforms; launched several Shin Megami Tensei games and spinoffs, like the Devil Survivor games on Nintendo DS; and even a Persona spinoff (Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth).

Since Persona 5 launched, we've had Shin Megami Tensei 5 and vague promises about the future of Persona as a series. So far, outside of another set of remakes, that future just looks a lot like different flavors of the Phantom Thieves. Maybe Atlus didn't expect Metaphor: ReFantazio to go over quite so well and decided to shift things in a different direction. It was, essentially, everything one might've expected from Persona 6. Anything less artful and ambitious or too similar to Metaphor would be a step backward — not what you want from the game that's supposed to define the next generation of your most profitable franchise.

Or maybe Atlus learned from Nintendo's too-early Metroid Prime 4 reveal and decided not to formally announce something that may be years off yet. "But they teased it during the 25th anniversary," you might say. Well, I thought so too. In fairness to Atlus, though, the studio never actually said it was making Persona 6. It teased a lineup of protagonists with a conspicuously empty spot in a few pieces of art, but now, after seeing the series' 30th anniversary art with Persona 5: The Phantom X's protagonist front and center, I wonder if he was the blank hero in the older teases all along.

Japanese publication 4Gamer runs an annual survey of the country's biggest video game studios and their plans for the next year. In the end-of-2025 survey, Kazuhisa Wada (chief producer for the Persona series) said "we believe there will be opportunities in 2026 to talk about future developments for the [Persona] series." So maybe Atlus is cooking after all. Let's just hope it's not Persona 5 Racing All Night.