Atlus seems to have shut down rumors that they were making remakes of Persona 1 and/or Persona 2.
Persona franchise general producer Kazuhisa Wada was asked point blank if they were making or planning these remakes. Wada simply said this to the interviewer at Gamespot:
“It is not on my schedule right now. I would like to do it someday.”
It’s a succinct answer, but a necessary one for fans who were led to hope on it for the past few months. For those who don’t know, the Atlus dedicated leaker Midori claimed last February that Atlus was planning a remake of at least Persona 2.
In the months after that time, it came to light that Midori was actually another leaker MysticDistance, pretending to be a woman in Japan. Midori AKA MysticDistance has retreated out of public view ever since, as a lot of the rumors that he shared had been put into question.
Midori seemed to have a very good track record, but because of this Midori, AKA MysticDistance, seemed free to share a lot of rumors that would be quickly debunked. It’s suspected that many of the rumors were smart guesses, and that in some cases, Midori just did a good enough job excusing it when he got his information wrong.
But what we had written down back when we reported on Midori’s rumor remains quite true. Even though we see plentiful remakes, ports, and remasters of the Persona games, they haven’t actually rereleased Persona 2 for decades now. Subsequently, the original Persona title, which was actually called Revelations: Persona, was last seen in PlayStation Portable in 2009.
There’s a clear rationale to have a rerelease or full remake for these games today. While each Persona game is a self-contained story, younger fans will definitely be curious to see how this franchise got started. Subsequently, the older hardcore fans would love to have an easy way to play these hard to find games.
Clearly, Atlus sees it the same way too, but they just don’t have anything planned for it at the moment. Perhaps it’s a project best reserved for the next console generation.
In any case, Episode Aigis of Persona 3 Reload is set to be released shortly. Atlus clearly has a lot of work to do with the games that are currently on their table now. Hopefully, when they finally get around to these remakes they’ll be well equipped to make these full multiplatform releases as well.
