I'd want them to shake it up but JRPG fans seem to like turn-based stuff a whole lot so I think they'll just stick to the same formula. Maybe it will be bigger and that will be the thing. We'll see in 10 years.

@liquiddragon: I'm not sure I'm with you on this dude. I've only play P3, P4, and P5 but all are pretty unique in their own way. I mean if 'one of those' implies an RPG with dungeons and the social link structure, then I'm fine with that personally. But though the 'strong-weak' battle system is similar, P5 did a really good job of changing up how that concept was utilized. The dungeons in P5 weren't my favorite, but they were differently unique as opposed to the 'manufactured home'-ish dungeons of 3 and 4. I think a further development of the design, like P5 was of P4 and P4 was of P3, would be a great thing for P6.

I would absolutely play another "Persona-ass-Persona-game", since they're still top tier JRPGs in my book.

That doesn't mean I'm not hoping for them to shake things up more next time though. I would love to see something that pushes the series forward in a new interesting direction, like P3 did.

Although realistically I don't expect the series to make changes that drastic again anytime soon. It's a lot easier to completely overhaul a series when it's a niche mildly successful franchise vs one of the most popular JRPGs on the market.

And I'd definitely rather they stick to what they do well then make the mistake of trying to reinvent themselves all the time just to stay "new", like Final Fantasy has tried and failed to do over the last decade.

I also have zero interest in it becoming an action or real time game. I'll definitely take more of the same over that, outside of experimental side games. High quality turn-based JRPGs are much more of a rarity these days, so there's nothing they could do that would not leave me pretty bummed if that was the part they changed.

Like a lot of people, I'd be all for a shift in tone and setting, but I really doubt we'll see a college or working class age Persona game any time soon. Not as long as Japan still has an obsessive nostalgia for their High School years and want an escape from the drudgery of adulthood.

I just want them to remake/remaster some of the old games. It's a series that has continuity and crossovers between games but you can't even access a lot of the old stuff unless you have a PS3 (most of the older games are on PSN in some form) and even then it's not in ideal form.

I'd like to get into Persona, really I would, but it seems super daunting at this point.

As for the actual question...I think Persona 5 sold very well so I doubt they'll shake it up much. Most Japanese developers are happy to churn out new takes on the old formula until there's backlash and the games don't sell well. Then they'll mix it up more, but usually not before then.

Of course mixing things up isn't always a benefit. Look at what has happened to Ghost Recon. We'd have all been better off if Ubisoft had stuck with what that series originally was.

Since Yakuza is becoming a turn-based RPG, they should blow everyone's minds and make Persona 6 an open world beat-em-up.

@jasonr86: I'm not trying to diss Persona but they found a formula.

@bigsocrates: You really don't need to play the old games to get into the new ones They're pretty much entirely stand-alone. (That's less true of the first two, but those are practically a different franchise at this point.) They "technically" take place in the same world, but the events of old games have zero bearing on future stories.

The only legitimate crossover between the games happens in the side projects like Q and Arena, but those are entirely optional fanservice experiences anyway.

Considering I think P5 is not just the best game in the series, but on the best rpgs/games of all time for me, I'm ok with "another one of those". Though honestly if you look at a base level it will probably always be one of those since that's what people love: Dungeon crawling with a visual novel/slice of life elements. If they changed both of those in a significant way it's basically not a persona game anymore and becomes something entirely different. Obviously they're not just gonna make the same exact game and have plenty of new things and qol stuff(hell that's happening with royal), but I never got the sense that Persona was something that needed to do something completely new.

I just want well written party members like Persona 3 again.

Both Persona 4 and 5 characters stop developing as characters after their respective dungeon, and while they are generally likable and fun, they don’t have much depth to them. Especially when all their personal growth is tied to social links, and in turn said growth is implied, rather than reflected in the story.

If they continue with the P4/P5 style of writing, then a change of setting might be interesting and help it stand out from its predecessors.

I’d like to play as a Salaryman with a persona. But keep the turn based combat. Persona (and SMT in general) have probably the best JRPG turn based combat at this point and I’d rather not see it turned into another dime-a-dozen action RPG. We have more than enough of those.

I think the overall formula (outside of mementos) is in a great place after 5, but I could only see myself enjoying another 100 hours of it if the narrative side is a hell of a lot better than what they managed in 5.

Oh, and they really need to come up with a satisfying evolution for the demon negotiation stuff, or take it out again. I've always thought that element of SMT was a flaming pile, though.

Final wish, no more $60 re-releases, especially if you're not only not including the old DLC, but making new paid DLC content for it. At this point even if 6 catches my interest, I won't be playing the release version next time.

Better to try something new and utterly fail than going back to the formula too much, in my opinion. So yeah I'm always for devs breaking from the usual even though it will displease the vast majority of fans because people generally hate change.

Persona is not a good case for regurgitated iterations though (yet) since each title has had enough of a difference, be it gameplay-wise or just stylistically.

But would I want to see Persona 6 be an Action RPG with a fully customizable character creator and all kinds of crazy shit? Fuck yes.

Seeing as it's like ten years away, likely, I'll be 40 when it comes out, and I dunno how much a teen based romance RPG is what I'll want by then

Keep in mind this is coming from someone whose only Persona experience is Persona 5, and which was a game I wanted to like a lot more than I actually did:

I kind of want them to shake it up a bit. It wasn't that I minded the gameplay so much (although I thought it was needlessly complicated and would be better if more streamlined) as I found the story terminally uninteresting.

Personally, I'd love to see them try the formula with adult characters rather than a bunch of teenagers. I know it's JRPG trope, but by the third or forth dungeon I was really sick of every character's arc essentially being a variation of "they're learning to grow up."

I continually found myself thinking it would have been a much more interesting story if my party were the coffee shop dude, the goth doctor, the teacher lady, a gun shop owner, and maybe the it's-totally-not-Bernie Sanders politician rather than a bunch of dumb high schoolers.

So basically keep the style, ditch the kids.

Fair enough. And I don't mean to imply that you had. But, I guess I don't see where the series is as following a formula. I suppose I see it more as a genre that the games are built around. Beyond just the genre of 'JRPG' and more of an 'interactive fiction/dungeon crawler' genre within which the series makes changes. Sort of like how 3D Mario is a genre in and of itself wherein Mario collects 'x' to progress but how he collects 'x' changes between a hub world, an open world, more linear design, or so on. So a change to the 'formula' to me would mean a change in genre, like say an open world, a different perspective, etc. But I can totally see how someone would play through Persona 3, 4, and 5 and say the experiences are more or less the same.

I honestly want a remake of 3 in the 5 engine before Persona 6. Like others, I found the writing in 5 was a bit lacking compared to earlier games, so an improvement there would be great, but P5 was the best playing of the games to this point. So more of that with a better story would be fine by me.

While I think Persona 5 was probably the best looking, and best playing game in the series, I came away incredibly disappointed in some of the writing choices in that game. Every single social link in that game boiled down to "This adult is making my life hell. Instead of talking it out, growing from it, creating a learning experience, or any sort of character development of any kind, can you just use your magic powers to make the problem go away because I knew you were the Phantom Thieves this whole time." That, on top of stuff like Haru's entire character following damn near the same exact story, beat for beat, both in the main game, and her social link as Mitsuru from 3, and the 30 minute scene where they try to explain the whole breaking Joker out thing, and coming out the other end of it more confused than when I went in, I'm ready for them to change things up.

Yo they made ONE new Persona game between 2008 and 2018. If anything I am starved for more. I want them more often than one per decade.

I also think them keeping the basic structure the same is what improved the games so much with each iteration. You can prefer the story or characters of 3 or 4 or whatever. I might prefer the Investigation Team to the Phantom Thieves. But the presentation, gameplay and content in P5 is lightyears ahead of where they began, and they made it there one step at a time. Persona 5 is like one of the best RPGs ever and they shouldn't toss out anything that worked.

Persona 6, directed and developed by either Hideaki Itsuno or Hideki Kamiya.

Now I'm motivated.

I really want them to take out the time management aspect of the game. That's made the series intolerable for me from 3 on.

Not counting FES / P3P / P4G / and P5R, there have been 3 of these in like 13 years. If one of these came out every 3 or so years, I would be happy. I'm fine with the spin-offs, the animes, and all of the miscellaneous side projects, but the wait from Persona 4 to Persona 5 was awful. Waiting over 8 years for installments for a franchise that is actively being worked on is kinda insane.

So with regards to this question, at this point I don't care. Make another one similar to Persona 5? Sure! Go back to having a dorm like Persona 3? Changing up the characters or making them older? That would be refreshing! Right on! Setting it in another big city, like Osaka? Cool! Setting it in a small town, like Inaba? That's also cool! A similar type of game that refines Persona 5's combat? Great, I loved how Persona 5 played! Coming up with something new that reinvents Persona? I'm curious to see what that is!

As long as it has 1) RPG mechanics, 2) Some social or work life balance, and 3) A good story, I'm down for whatever. There hasn't been enough of these games for me to be burned out. So make the exact same game or reinvent the wheel. Just don't take another decade to make one of these.

Each of the Persona games from 3 to 5 deals with the contemporary social concerns of its target audience (teens and early 20s). I'd say they're all pretty different in that respect. The way I saw it, 3 is about the nihilism and individualism of Gen X, 4 is about breaking free of that and rediscovering humanity (new-sincerity / post-irony), and 5 is clearly influenced by the extreme politicization of millennials and GenZ. So I'm not sure what 'another one of those' would be, aside from traditional JRPG mechanics, and I think we could do with a LOT more of those personally. I really miss turn-based games.

Yeah that'd be absolutely ok. We've seen a few games start to crib elements from Persona since the explosion in popularity of the series but none of them are doing it at the level that P5 reached. The general formula stayed the same sure but there were a ton of huge shake-ups within that formula from P4 to P5 so if they continue to do that then it'd definitely remain interesting.

Especially since we're probably waiting another 10 years for the next one.

Persona is still kind of it's own unique thing that you won't really get anywhere else. I also think 5 made some significant changes and improvements for the better overall already. The formula definitely has a lot of room to grow still. If they improve at the same rate as the jump from 4 to 5 I think it's more than fine to stick to the general flow and design of the game. I will definitely play more persona in the future.

That said too though, if they were to revamp the combat system, I wouldn't personally be opposed to it. I think the combat is fine, but it's not my favorite turn based system by any stretch. That's maybe the area I would appreciate huge changes the most as far as my own enjoyment goes.

I trust them to know what they're doing. Nobody else attempts to make these games, so i'd prefer they do more of "one of those" and less everything else.

They work with other companies to make a bunch of Persona side games that I don't think they really need to change the formula in the main game. They've already got an action RPG with Persona 5 Scramble, classic dungeon crawler with Persona Q, a fighting game in Persona 4 Arena and even multiple rhythm games based on different games.

P5 was my first Persona game, so I'm in no way tired of the formula and would definitely play a P6 marketed as just the next P5 game. Though I did rage quit 2/3 of the way through after a wonky response to a cover position change had me roll though a door and into an encounter instead of to the next cover position. During which my party wiped. Twice in the same play session. Losing cool new personas/items both times. Rage.

I wouldn't mind a limited use time rewind for situations like that, a la Fire Emblem 3 Houses. Or when you do an activity in the free time and then realize it ended your day with minimal rewards.

I'd be happy if they swapped the high school setting with a workplace setting; playing as adults instead of kids. I get that Japanese entertainment culture is fixated on the halcyon high school days, but it feels really played out. I'm nearing on 30--I'm old as fuck--my interest for playing young adults is waning drastically. As far as gameplay, I don't mind. Keep it the same, but maybe better handle narrative pacing? P5 definitely had long stretches of story that went on for too long between gameplay.

If we have to categorize what is "another one of those" when it comes to the recent Persona series, namely 3, 4, and 5, I would say there are 4 components:

1. Weakness focus 1 more turn base system

2. Calendar/time management system

3. Social Link/Confidant system

4. Contemporary real world setting, this one is across all Persona games in general and tread into other SMT related titles.

I would like them to keep the modern real world setting as it was what first caught my eye when I first encountered Persona 2:EP.

The other three points...I don't know. They have iterate on those points across 3, 4, and 5. While still effective I was starting to wonder if they should keep this going for P6 as I was playing P5.

The idea of a calendar + social life system is still interesting from a strategic standpoint, but with the way I play these games, there's really only one path, and working around the time limitation becomes a chore. I also find they sort of went overboard in 5 dividing between Palace time, Mementos time, and locking down extra days needed for story/mission features and calling card.

The Confidant system I think has improved over the three games. The storyline within them have hits and misses. Having MC solving the issue with their "magic ability" is literally the point of the game, although a little more tact would be nice. (also I believe that Sun confidant is actually incomplete)

I think the teenager focus is strongest in P5. P3 and P4 features high school cast, and had a few lines here and there, but they are no where as center stage as P5. P2:EP feature a mostly adult cast, but that aspect of it brought nothing special to the table.

I'm totally fine if the next Persona game is like other Persona games. There really isn't much I'd change about P3/4/5 so pretty much more of that with a new story/characters is exactly what I want.

I feel like "just another one of those" doesn't really do Persona justice, if the innovation isn't in gameplay mechanics it's in everything else.

They space the releases out often enough that I would be fine if P6 was "another one of those" assuming they had a better story and cast then Persona 5 had. Personally with all of the JRPG's switching off "traditional" JRPG combat I am fine with those games just being what they are.

(Though I wouldn't mind if they progressed it from highschool to college in Japan.)

I wouldn’t mind them following the established course of innovating the formula in meaningful ways while staying true to the core ideas of the franchise - exactly how P5 had done it.

Persona's formula has been iterated since P3 and it has been getting better and better. P4 was on a rural area so it made sense to have so few civilians roaming the main street. As P5 picked up the action in Tokyo, I really liked the artistic choice of just not showing random civs, giving you a sense of chaos (subways and festivals) so I would recommend doing so.

As I said the formula is great, I'm very interested to know where the action will take place, and whether the protagonist is boy/girl. I know that in P3 you can opt to chose it so why not bring it back for P6. As for character customization I'm against it. I don't want to mess with sliders to have a great boy/girl.

As for the slice-of-life stuff I think ATLUS should start pairing your party members with each other, at least a couple, maybe then you could go on a double-date?! Ryuji would have fit great with Ann. But they dont even hint it, maybe they are just really good friends. You know like in P4 where you could try and set up Chie with Kou (basketball dude).

In terms of battle mechanics this game goes leaps above P4, the amount of stuff you can do between turns and deal dmg is insane and fun and then we have the Negotiation stuff. To be honest i never liked P4 system, it was unimaginable and boring. The changes they made to Golden were cool cause it showed you all the cards and not keep them spinning, allowing you to combo.

@dizzyhippos: I also think that the move to college could give meaning to more players that currently shy away from Persona games because of age restrictions in some activities. for example: Dating a college teacher or teacher aid while being a university student (and not on her class) would shut up the people who call P5 trash because of such iterations.

I don’t want it to start being an action game like 90% of all mainstream JRPGs. I would however like for it to move toward having a more adult cast in the future like the early Kazuma Kaneko/Okada and Tadashi titles. I love Persona’s turn based combat and loved how 5 had shaken it up even further as well as bringing negotiations back and made the dungeon crawling more fun with the excellent designes dungeons instead of the dreary Dungeons of Persona 2, 3 and 4.

I really don't mind more of the same as long as quality of life improvements keep being implemented. Finally being to choose your spells when fusing was massive when P5 came out, especially when other SMT games already let you do that

I wasn't even happy that Persona 5 was "one of those." I loved 3 because it felt really unique at the time. 4 was even too similar for my tastes but the murder-mystery aspect was just enough of a twist that I was OK with the fact that the social link and battle mechanics were more or less identical to 3. What I played of 5 felt like more of the same, except with even more layers of stuff piled on top (more daytime activities, an entire second dungeon system, etc). After so many years between 4 and 5, I had hoped for more things that would shake up the core formula a bit.