It has been a month since Persona 5 launched in the West, and it is safe to call it a resounding success. To thank the fans, game director Katsura Hashino wrote a heartfelt message on the PlayStation Blog.
Read the translation below:
"As a developer, I am very happy to know that Persona 5 is being played by so many people overseas. To be honest, it is quite difficult to measure the game's popularity in the West, since our development team is based in Japan; from here, we cannot see people's comments and discussions.
It would be wonderful to interact with this range of fans but, unfortunately, I am stuck in the development room eating instant ramen (laughs). Persona 5 is a "very Japanese" story with some political elements sprinkled into it, which made it difficult for me to know how Western players would react to it.
What I do know, however, is that overseas players were eagerly anticipating Persona 5 even when we were still only in the development stage, which made me curious to see how its story would be received.
I am going off on a tangent here, but I think traditional Japanese superhero stories tend to show heroes fighting invaders from outside their society, while Western stories tend to focus on fighting villains and misfits from within their own society. There is an entire sense that society is responsible for creating this evil, and that premise sends the audience's imagination racing with questions such as "could that have been me?" For example, does Batman's Joker not make assertions that might very well resonate with some thought of your own?
Persona 5 is also a superhero story in which you fight villains born within society, so I think the game might be received differently from earlier entries in the franchise. Obviously, it could have failed and been criticized for this, so my hope and anxiety were split evenly.
Now that the game has launched in the West, I would like to revisit it later, once I receive feedback from Western audiences about their experience with the gameplay, what they felt while playing, and so on. I hope the tale of Persona 5 leaves a good, lasting impression on everyone who plays it. No matter what kind of project I take on from now on, I love creating RPGs that are both moving and relatable to players, regardless of cultural differences.
In fact, I am now very interested in strengthening those aspects.
Last year, with the historic milestone of the Persona series' 20th anniversary, I handed development of the series over to my successors and announced the start of my new RPG project set in a fantasy world. Whether it is a game set in the present day, like the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei series, or a game set in a fantasy world, I aim to create games that give players a priceless experience in which they can reflect on themselves during a journey while playing characters with whom they can identify deeply.
These efforts are possible only because of the positive reception we have received from fans, not only in Japan but around the world, for the Persona series and Atlus RPGs in general. I thank you for all your support for the newest entry in the Persona franchise, and I hope everyone enjoys the new RPGs that Atlus will release."
This message was also accompanied by the following image of Morgana, Ann, and the protagonist:
