Highlights
- Persona 6 will reportedly take place in a high school setting.
- As the series' fandom grew older, some fans began calling for the franchise to grow up.
- Atlus has so far made one attempt to move the mainline Persona games beyond the high school setting, which was unsuccessful, sales-wise.
Persona 6 will take place in a high school setting, a prominent Atlus leaker has said. Their claim was offered in response to yet another wave of fan discussion about whether Persona 6 could benefit from going to college.
The high school setting has been near-synonymous with the long-running JRPG franchise since its 1996 beginnings. This part of its formula is actually even older, having first emerged in the 1994 Shin Megami Tensei If, which proved successful enough to convince Atlus to create a spin-off series completely revolving around high school. But as the Persona fandom got older, calls for the franchise to try looking beyond high school started gaining momentum. In terms of the next mainline entry, it is nowadays not uncommon to see fans advocate for Persona 6 to grow up.
Persona 3 Reload Fans Spot Misleading Mistranslation
The English version of Persona 3 Reload contains a rather misleading mistranslation that might affect players' party composition.
Persona 6 Is 'Not Getting Out of High School,' Insider Claims
But that's not going to happen, according to well-known Atlus leaker Midori. Taking to Twitter on February 26, the insider said that the upcoming game is "not getting out of high school." Their claim emerged as part of the latest round of fan discussion about whether Persona 6 could benefit from leaving the high school tradition behind.
Persona Series Has Already Left High School Once, And It Didn't Go Well
Atlus's reluctance to make the Persona series grow up ostensibly comes down to a combination of factors. For one, the Japanese studio already did that once with Persona 2: Eternal Punishment. The experiment didn't go well, as the 2000 RPG ended up being the lowest-selling entry in the franchise, moving fewer than 285,000 units, with the vast majority of its sales coming from Japan. The complete Persona 2 duology sold only 675,000 copies, a far cry from the global success of all the subsequent games in the franchise.
Another reason for the series' adherence to the high school setting that might be lost on Western fans comes down to the cultural context. Educational years are often viewed through a romantic lens in both Japanese and Western cultures, but the two tend to focus on different stages. While the West sees college as the pivotal time of freedom, exploration, and personal growth, Japanese often attribute those experiences to high school. Similar to colleges on the other side of the planet, Japanese high schools pair non-compulsory classes with rigorous academic testing. Yet their students still have plenty of time for self-discovery, at least relative to later stages in life.
These differences help explain why Japanese society tends to view high school as a more formative period of life than college, contrary to the Western perspective, which is also reflected in the themes explored by its media, video games included. One final reason why Atlus might want to keep Persona 6 in high school comes down to maintaining the series' mainstream appeal: since more people attend high school than college, this setting is inherently more relatable than a university one would be.
