Atlus is hard at work on games beyond Catherine: Full Body, and it's presumably a new Persona title to help keep fans happy. Its development team Studio Zero is also putting together its debut project, Project Re Fantasy, which looks like it's going to be an interesting departure from the norm, at least in terms of JRPGs.
Studio Zero has released its first teaser trailer for Project Re Fantasy. We get to see a good chunk of footage packed into five minutes, which combines traditional artwork with live-action cutscenes of a woman that represents the Cleric class, a veiled woman in a red robe for the Mage class, a traditional-looking knight in armor kneeling with a sword meant to embody the Warrior role, an archer peeking from behind a tree as the Thief, and a valkyrie-like woman known as a Lord.
These character classes have some pretty interesting "natures" and "aspirations," with the Warrior's aspiration to be "ceasing to exist." There's probably a lot of deep-seated self-loathing within the Warrior, which seems to be a pretty common trope in fantasy games, but there may also be some sort of interesting backstory to wade through.
Live-action characters are a bold artistic choice for Project Re Fantasy, but it could simply be that the game doesn't have enough completed footage or finalized character models yet to put together a gameplay trailer. We don't know much about the game just yet. In fact, we can only really go by what the five-minute trailer divulges, which is mostly that the world has entered a dark time and there's some sort of hero coming to save society.
The game is currently still under development, but as 2018 wears on, we’ll likely hear a lot more about it, especially now that Catherine: Full Body has a targeted release date and Studio Zero has time to focus tirelessly on its own pursuits. If it’s anything like what Atlus has released in the past, we could be in for some pretty interesting JRPG mechanics. Perhaps we’ll see a lot more live-action scenes, too.
