Persona director explains why Metaphor: ReFantazio's cast awakens their powers in the most brutal way: "The big theme of this game is anxiety"

Anyone who's played Persona knows that activating the cast's powers and awakening their inner selves isn't always a pretty sight. Persona 5's cast violently rip masks off their faces, and Persona 3's party need to literally shoot themselves. Developer Atlus is now continuing the brutal trend in its new fantasy RPG Metaphor: ReFantazio, but there's a reason behind the madness this time. 

Metaphor: ReFantazio's Prologue demo is out now, and the turn-based battles have our cast pulling their very own thumping hearts right out of their chests in order to activate magical abilities. It's bloody and brutal (and stylish, as all Atlus games are), but it's also more than just a cool animation.

"The big theme of this game is anxiety," director Katsura Hashino explained to Gamer Braves, "and so there might be cultural boundaries which might change from country to country, but what we were thinking about was ‘Okay, where is anxiety felt the most?’ And we thought of the heart."

Anxiety manifests in chest constrictions, hyperventilation, or general heartache - so, Metaphor's development team presented the struggle as literally as possible. "And so that’s the source’s idea of grabbing your heart, pulling it out, and telling your heart to ‘ganbare’, work hard, try your best."

Those themes tie into the game's grander power struggle, too. "When you have someone in a position of power like a king, you want that person to fix your anxieties or your worries, right?" Hashino said when explaining that the game revolves around the protagonist trying to "go for the throne" - "what we thought was really interesting was when someone goes on that side of taking on people’s anxieties in that way, what sort of virtues do they need to have? What sort of requirements are there to be in that position?"

We'll see what those answers are when Metaphor: ReFantazio comes out on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on October 11.

Metaphor: ReFantazio players could complete an entire JRPG in the 60 hours some of them have spent in the JRPG’s demo.