Atlus has announced the creation of a new internal studio, Studio Zero, headed by Katsura Hashino, the director of Persona 5, Catherine, Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne and more. First on Studio Zero’s plate: the creation of a traditional fantasy JRPG with heavy Atlus influence. You can check out a concept video for Project Re Fantasy below (note: it’s in Japanese and not subtitled):
"We take seriously this goal of creating a game with the care and detail expected by the people who love ATLUS games and home console games," said Hashino in Atlus's official statement after the Famitsu interview. "We haven't determined yet what platform our new game will be, and I imagine this project will take a long time until completion. But we'll be working hard at this challenge to truly deliver something new and incredible for all our fans."
Team members include Shigenori Soejima from the Atlus Artwork Team, who will create character art for the inhabitants of Project Re Fantasy’s world, and Shoji Meguro from the Atlus Sound Team, who will serve as the title’s music composer. Atlus describes the project as something entirely new and “a complete departure from the SMT and Persona series.”
While the game is still in its infancy, a website is available for those interested in watching Project Re Fantasy’s progress. Soejima and Meguro will continue to work on the Persona series, and P-Studio (the production team that does Persona ) will still develop Persona titles while Studio Zero recruits more staff.
Persona 5 is scheduled for an April 4 release date. There’s not yet a whisper of a release window for Project Re Fantasy, which is still “in the earliest of stages of development,” according to the press release.
Are you looking forward to a new fantasy RPG with a pedigreed team who’ve worked on games like Persona, SMT and Catherine? Feel free to talk about what Project Re Fantasy may shape up to be in our comments section below.
