A recent Famitsu interview with Daisuke Kanada, the producer and director behind Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers, revealed plans for future games starring the Phantom Thieves.
Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers, the sequel to Atlus’ JRPG hit Persona 5, was released in Japan earlier this year. The game takes place six months after the events of Persona 5 and features hack-and-slash style gameplay (as opposed to the parent game’s turn-based combat). Atlus teamed up with Koei Tecmo’s Omega Force, known for their work on Dynasty Warriors, for this title.
In a recent Famitsu survey, many fans expressed interest in seeing the Phantom Thieves travel overseas for their next adventure. Kanada agreed with fans, saying “I think that this game’s setting of “The Phantom Thieves travel around Japan” has great potential for development, and I would love for them to travel to places they have not visited yet.”
Kanada did bring up one issue with the Thieves traveling, expressing concern that a few months of summer vacation would not be enough time for all the Thieves to travel. Therefore, he suggested potentially dropping the game’s “calendar format” to give the Thieves more flexibility to explore new areas: “However, if that were to happen, summer vacation period alone may not be long enough. In this game, we adopted the date concept in terms of Persona 5, but I have a dream of graduating from the calendar and being able to depict the Phantom Thieves being able to visit various places freely.”
The same Famitsu survey also showed fans’ love for Scramble-exclusive characters Sophia and Zenkichi Hasegawa. When asked if they could appear in sequels, Kanada expressed desire in bringing the two characters back alongside the Phantom Thieves in future games.
Many participants in the survey also were enthusiastic to the idea of seeing more games featuring the Phantom Thieves. Kanada expressed that he was happy to receive such warm feedback, and expressed a desire to create another sequel with the same Scramble team.
Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers was released in Japan on February 20 for the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. It will be released in South Korea and the rest of Asia on June 18. At the time of writing, there is no official word yet regarding a Western release.
Source: Persona Central
