'Persona 5' Soundtrack Coming To Vinyl In Collaboration With iam8bit

On Friday, Atlus announced a collaboration with the gaming-focused artist collective iam8bit to release the Persona 5 soundtrack on vinyl records. There will be two editions, one with four records and another with six.

Unfortunately (but not surprisingly), these hefty vinyl collections won’t come cheap. The four-record Essential Edition will be curated by the Atlus Sound Team (and therefore will not contain every song produced for the game) and will be priced at $100. The six-disc edition features the complete and unabridged Persona 5 soundtrack for $175. Only 1,000 copies of the Deluxe Edition will be produced.

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In a press release, Atlus also confirms there’ll be plenty of gorgeous, original Persona 5 art incorporated into these deluxe soundtrack releases: “You can bet that the records will come packaged with stunning album cover art. We can't reveal it just yet, but please stay tuned to iam8bit for more information in the future.”

Iam8bit plans to extensively document production of the Persona 5 soundtracks through a series of videos, photos and interviews. According to Atlus, iam8bit’s coverage of the process will include:

• Mastering - They'll visit their favorite mastering studio, Infrasonic, and chronicle how music is mixed for the retro technology that is vinyl.
• Test Presses - They'll show you what it's like to create lacquers & test presses, which serve as the benchmark for the vinyl's audio quality.
• Vinyl Production - They'll hang with their friends from Noiseland at their factory in France, capturing the analog magic of melting "wax" and stamping records. It's pretty crazy to see because some of these machines are nearly 100 years old!
• Packaging - They'll reveal just how much work goes into creating a unique packaging experience from design to printing to assembly.
• Artwork - They'll reveal the "Mystery Album Art," the result of an intimate collaboration between iam8bit, ATLUS, SEGA, and a to-be-announced, top-secret artist.

The Persona 5 vinyl soundtracks will ship in “Q4 2017,” which means fans are in for a bit of a wait. (Nothing Persona loyalists aren’t used to, right?) Pre-orders will begin today at 1 p.m. EST on the iam8bit official site.

The Persona series has a long-established reputation for high-quality, eclectic and infectiously memorable soundtracks, and the latest installment in the series, Persona 5, is no exception. It’s almost impossible not to tap your toes along to tunes like ‘Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There’ and ‘Life Will Change,’ and we wouldn’t be surprised if more than a few Persona fans knew soul singer Lyn Inaizumi’s lyrics by heart before the game even came out in North America and Europe.

If the $100+ price point for vinyl leaves you balking, or you don’t own a record player, the 110-song Persona 5 soundtrack is also available on iTunes for $29.99.

Will you preorder the Persona 5 soundtrack on vinyl? What are some of your favorite tracks in the game? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!