In 2017, Project Re:Fantasy developer Atlus released Persona 5, a game that forever changed the direction of the studio and finally helped establish it as one of the biggest mainstream JRPG studios outside of Japan, despite countless cult classics preceding it. In recent years, the game has been followed by other JRPGs such as Shin Megami Tensei 5 and the recent Soul Hackers 2. It has even seen an expanded re-release in the form of Persona 5 Royal, however in 2017, Atlus announced its next big IP, a game from some of the most key minds behind Persona 5: Project Re:Fantasy.
Project Re:Fantasy: A Fool's Journey Begins was first announced before Persona 5 even released in the west, revealed in a live stream in December 2016, only three months after Persona 5 shipped in Japan. Since then, the game has seen only a handful of updates, usually in the form of interviews with some of the game's staff and despite numerous teases, it has still never been fully showcased. Since past precedent suggests Persona 6 might be revealed at the upcoming Persona concert, rather than Tokyo Game Show, it's looking likely that Atlus' big game for Tokyo Game Show 2022 next week could be Project Re:Fantasy.
The History of Project Re:Fantasy
Upon its announcement in December 2016, Project Re:Fantasy was revealed to be Atlus' first fantasy RPG franchise, ditching the modern day settings of games like Shin Megami Tensei 5 and Persona 5. The game is being developed by an internal team known as Studio Zero, which is led by key members of the development staff of Persona 3, Persona 4, and Persona 5, including director Katsura Hashino, lead artist Shigenori Soejima, and composer Shoji Meguro. The game was announced with a developer recruitment advertisement in Japanese gaming magazine Weekly Famitsu, indicating that the title had just begun pre-production.
Following its announcement, updates on Project Re:Fantasy have been scarce for almost six years now, with fans only discovering that the game is planned as a PlayStation 4 title through job listings on Atlus' website. In 2017, Hashino even confirmed that Studio Zero had begun work on another non-fantasy title alongside Project Re:Fantasy. In 2018, he confirmed that the game was 'halfway' through development, and in 2019 a song from the upcoming game was discovered in Studio Zero's first official game release, an enhanced re-release of 2010's Catherine named Catherine: Full Body.
Since 2019, Katsura Hashino has claimed in Atlus' Weekly Famitsu New Years' column that he hopes to properly reveal Project Re:Fantasy in the coming year, ultimately to no avail. In December 2020, he revealed that Project Re:Fantasy's development had reached its "climax", but no new information was revealed during 2021 either. Hashino reiterated in the following year's New Years segment in Weekly Famitsu that the game's development is again nearing its climax.
While these lack of updates and repetitive reiterations are somewhat frustrating, Project Re:Fantasy is one of Atlus' most ambitious projects to date, coming from an promising new studio of veterans and tackling a type of setting the studio has rarely touched on before. Atlus has also made a habit in recent years of staying quiet about certain games until they are close to release, like how Soul Hackers 2 was revealed only six months before its release, and how Shin Megami Tensei 5 went almost three years without any updates before it was re-revealed only a year before its release. This likely means that when Project Re:Fantasy does re-emerge, it will likely be very close to its worldwide release.
Why Project Re:Fantasy Could Steal Tokyo Game Show 2022
Atlus is in a very interesting position for Tokyo Game Show 2022. Alongside its parent company Sega, the studio has one of the biggest booths on the Tokyo Game Show's show floor, but the only titles that the studio has confirmed that it will showcase so far have been the remastered ports of Persona 5 Royal, Persona 4 Golden, and Persona 3 Portable. While Sega has some of its own titles and a few third-party titles that it's publishing in Japan, such as Hogwarts Legacy and Gotham Knights, this large presence feels off for a studio only showcasing remasters. Atlus will run another Persona Super Live concert in October, and since the 2015 concert dropped the first Persona 5 trailer, it feels unlikely that the studio will reveal Persona 6 at the game show.
This leaves an opportunity open for Atlus to showcase Project Re:Fantasy and give the title a huge blowout ahead of next month's potential Persona 6 announcement. Given that Project Re:Fantasy's development team consists of a lot of staff that previously worked on Persona 3, Persona 4, and Persona 5, it's fair to expect that the next mainline Persona game will see the series take a few major shifts that will indicate the change in development staff, ushering in a new era for the series. With this in mind, Atlus could be planning to off-set any incoming controversy by showcasing the ex-Persona 5 developers' next game head of Persona 6, likely to give fans even more RPGs to look forward to.
This is also the first Tokyo Game Show in recent years that Atlus is entering with no big title outside of remasters of past Persona titles. Unless Vanillaware is to announce its latest game, following up 2020's 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, it feels strange for one of the biggest JRPG publishers in Japan to enter the country's biggest expo with no new titles, even despite launching Soul Hackers 2 last month. In 2021, Atlus confirmed that it had around 10 games in development, which at the time likely included the Persona remasters and Soul Hackers 2, but that still leaves room for unannounced games, and previously announced games like Project Re:Fantasy to receive updates soon.
Even almost six years after its reveal, there's still a lot of mystery surrounding Project Re:Fantasy. All that fans really know is that it is being developed by ex-Persona staff and will feature a fantasy setting. Outside of this, it is not known if the game will utilize the standard turn-based combat present in other Atlus games or be the studio's first step into action RPG combat. It's also not known if the game is still planned for PS4. With past Persona games now making their way to PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and PC, Project Re:Fantasy could also launch as a multi-platform title.
Hopefully these questions will receive answers sooner rather than later, but it feels like Atlus is planning for Project Re:Fantasy to be its big reveal at this year's Tokyo Game Show, especially if Persona 6 gets revealed at the upcoming concert. Given that the game has been winding down development for around two years now, it seems that even if Project Re:Fantasy doesn't appear at Tokyo Game Show 2022, its formal reveal should be just around the corner.
Project Re:Fantasy is currently in development.