Persona 5 will steal your heart and battle demons on Valentine's Day 2017
Persona 5 will face out, hold out, reach out to the Americas on February 14, 2017. That means Westerners will need to wait five months longer than Japanese to play the next game in the acclaimed slice of life / demon battling series, but at least you have your Valentine's Day plans sorted.
Both the PS3 and PS4 versions of the game will be released simultaneously, though the "Take Your Heart" premium edition will only be offered for PS4. The $89.99 bundle comes in a big collectible box, which includes a Shujin Academy (that's where your protagonists go when they're not pulling off heists) school bag, a 64-page hardcover artbook, a soundtrack CD, and a plush doll of literal cat burglar Morgana in her humanoid form.
It also includes a special SteelBook case with the game inside, though you can get that just by buying a launch edition of the standard PS4 version. Here's what the pack looks like:
And here's the equally classy standard box art:
Last but not least, here's the official plot synopsis from Atlus. It's a familiar enough premise, just trade the department store TV for people's (presumably not literal) hearts.
"Persona 5 is a game about the internal and external conflicts of a group of troubled high school students - the protagonist and a collection of compatriots he meets in the game's story - who live dual lives as Phantom Thieves. They have the typically ordinary day-to-day of a Tokyo high schooler: attending class, after-school activities, and part-time jobs.
"But they also undertake fantastical adventures by using otherworldly powers to enter the hearts of people. Their power comes from the Persona, the Jungian concept of the 'self'; the game's heroes realize that society forces people to wear masks to protect their inner vulnerabilities, and by literally ripping off their protective mask and confronting their inner selves do the heroes awaken their inner power, and using it to help those in need.
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"Ultimately, the group of Phantom Thieves seeks to change their day-to-day world to match their perception and see through the masks modern society wears."
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I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.