5 min read
Atlus isn’t good at keeping secrets, are they?
Following the success of Persona 3 Reload two years ago, a remake of Persona 4 felt inevitable. It was never a question of if, but when. Like past reveals, the remake followed the expected pattern: domain, nameservers, announcement – no surprises there. Still, I wonder if the announcement was pushed forward after Yuri Lowenthal, Erin Fitzgerald, and Amanda Winn-Lee – the voices of Yosuke, Chie, and Yukiko – confirmed they hadn’t been asked to reprise their roles. I have my issues with the community’s reaction on this front, but I’ll get to that at a later time.
The trailer for the remake begins with the Samegawa Flood Plain. Then the fox shrine. Then the iconic tower made of TVs, each showing a different location from the game. Credit where it’s due: they captured Inaba’s pre-murder tranquility well. Soon after, the TVs glow red – familiar imagery – before cutting to Yu Narukami sprinting from the shrine toward the northern shopping district. You’d be excused for missing the seamless transition; in the original and in Persona 4 Golden, those two areas were treated as separate maps due to hardware limitations.
Then comes the name reveal: Persona 4 Revival. A 42-second clip that shows… nothing.
I was hoping for something more.
To illustrate just how rushed this feels, consider this: if reports are accurate, Revival had about a year of full development under its belt before being announced. Reload, by contrast, had been in the works for four years. That’s not nearly enough time to put together a showing that reflects the quality of the project – or even gestures at its intended vision.
The whole thing gives me Kingdom Hearts III flashbacks – revealed in 2013 to massive fanfare, despite barely having entered development. That game sat on ice until what eventually became Final Fantasy XV wrapped up, and yet somehow, Square Enix showed more in that early teaser than Atlus managed to here.
There had to be something more presentable they could’ve shown, right? Technically, sure – Yu already has a 3D model from Dancing All Night. Reusing assets isn’t laziness, it’s efficiency. If anything, it would’ve made perfect sense to rely on it, at least until his Revival model is ready. That alone could explain how quickly this teaser came together.
But even then, what was shown barely clears the bar for an internal proof of concept – the kind made to communicate basic ideas, not something polished enough for public eyes. I’d accept this level of roughness from a fan tinkering in Unreal Engine, but not from Atlus. Disclaimers or not, it doesn’t matter – the presentation simply wasn’t ready.
And if Reddit is any indication, I’m not the only one who thinks so.
As I try to make sense of what Sega’s management was thinking by putting this out, I can’t help but feel frustrated. What part of this was considered presentable? Who signed off on it? Was this a Microsoft decision tied to the event, or does the blame fall squarely on Sega?
It probably wasn’t meant to come off this way, but the end result feels petty – a teaser, stripped to its bones, saying little more than “it exists. Happy?” A calculated play for nostalgia, banking on recognition to make a quick buck. Ironically, it also kneecaps Persona 4 Golden, a product Sega is still actively selling. That game only just became playable on modern hardware – two years ago on consoles, five on Steam – and now potential buyers are left wondering whether it’s even worth picking up.
To me, this teaser feels like a disservice: to the developers at P-Studio working hard behind the scenes, to Persona 4’s legacy, and to the fans who’ve waited years for this remake to become real. I genuinely feel for director Kazuhisa Wada: now tasked with overseeing a game still in its early stages, managing press, and handling damage control all at once. Sure, it’s his job, but this rollout doesn’t look like it was in his hands.
What saddens me is that I want to be excited for this game.
Persona 4 got me into the series after years of seeing its promo art in magazines. My gateway was the anime, which I covered on a podcast over a decade ago. For a time, I owned both Sentai’s DVD and Blu-ray releases. I bought the original PS2 game and finished it. I played the fighting games. I played Dancing All Night – a game I adore so much that my first major video project was about it. All of those games are still on my shelf, and I can play them, assuming I’ve got the hardware to match.
As for Golden, I own four copies: Vita, Steam, Xbox digital, and the Limited Run Games edition. And I’ve finished the game a total of zero times – not for lack of interest, but because I already know that world so well.
When Reload was announced, my reaction was more of a shrug: “Oh cool, I’ll finally finish Persona 3,” since my backwards-compatible PS3 had died mid-playthrough thanks to the Yellow Light of Death. I still bought Reload on day one, but I think it’s fair to say my feelings toward it were indifferent.
Persona 4 is different.
Even if you don’t agree with everything I’ve said, I hope you can at least take this away: these harsh words come from a place of love. I want Revival to succeed – and next time it’s shown, I hope it gives me a reason to believe.