Persona 5 Royal is in good hands, and will be backed by a talented Atlus team, according to a new feature from Japanese gaming publication Famitsu.
The report names the new director and producer for Persona 5 Royal in the most recent issue of Weekly Famitsu, which is sort of a teaser for big stories to be published in the main issues. Both the director and producer previously worked on Persona 4 Golden, which lends some credence to their expertise in shaping the upcoming JRPG title.
Persona 5 Royal is set to be directed by Daiki Itoh, and will be produced by Kazuhisa Wada. The duo are set to replace both roles filled previously by Katsura Hoshino, who helmed Persona 5. It seems very likely that both their previous work on Persona 4 Golden is what made Atlus decide to choose them. Persona 4 Golden is very much like the upcoming Persona 5 Royal, in that both are remixes for their base games that add a significant amount of content that changes parts of the story.
Daiki Itoh previously worked as the project director for Persona 4 Golden, while Kazuhisa Wada was a chief designer for the same game. In terms of Persona 5, only Itoh had a previous hand in it, working as its lead confidant designer.
The Weekly Famitsu issue also stated that Katsura Hoshino left as director in order to serve as the same role in Atlus’ next title, Project Re Fantasy. Atlus’ brand new studio, Studio Zero, is set to handle and develop Project Re Fantasy, helmed by Hoshino.
Avid followers of the series are aware that Hoshino has directed the last three mainline Persona games, which makes his non-involvement now come as a huge surprise. If anything, it seems that the upcoming Project Re Fantasy title is a big one if Atlus needs Hoshino’s expertise in helming it. In any case, it looks like there shouldn’t be much cause for worry, seeing as both Itoh and Wada had working experience on previous Persona titles.
Persona 5 Royal is set to be released in Japan on October 31, 2019, with a worldwide release to follow in 2020.
