Mr Viral
Image: Atlus
After teasing some news on its social channels earlier this week, Atlus has finally announced that a new Persona game is coming out. No, it’s not Persona 6, but rather Persona 5: The Phantom X, a spin-off that is finally making its way out of China and into other territories.
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Suggested ReadingUnlike the rest of the Persona 5 games, The Phantom X doesn’t follow Joker, Ryuji, and the rest of the original game’s cast. Instead, it follows a different group of Phantom Thieves led by a high school student code-named Wonder. The team attends a different high school and is accompanied by a different mascot character, the tonfa-wielding owl named Lufel. The other major difference between The Phantom X and most Persona games is that it has microtransactions and gacha mechanics. Yes, to take part in the game’s social sim and dungeon crawling, you’ll have to either wait for a set amount of time to pass or use currency to replenish your energy. Otherwise, the game is free-to-play. Check out the announcement trailer below:
Persona 5: The Phantom X will launch on PC and mobile devices on June 26. When Atlus first teased the announcement, some people thought it was referencing Persona 6. However, the RPGs typically shed their previous color scheme and aesthetics with each mainline entry, so most fans knew the black-and-red graphic indicated that whatever this game was, it was still part of the Persona 5 subseries. This, coupled with the owl emoji used on the social posts, clearly hinted at a Phantom X announcement, but the game has been sequestered in China for so long that some fans aren’t even aware of it. The Phantom X was originally announced in 2023 and has been in an open beta phase in the territory since last year.
With Persona 6 rumors floating around, it’s entirely possible that The Phantom X could be the final game in the Persona 5 subseries. If that’s the case, it’s kind of a bummer to end this era on a game that doesn’t star the original cast, but Atlus’ attempts at extending their story have been a bit hit or miss.
