Producer Says Persona Is Created for the Japanese Audience
Recently, Kazuhisa Wada gave an interview to Xbox where he revealed that at Atlus, their goal has always been to create games that they themselves think are good, rather than games designed to please Western audiences. This statement caused quite a stir among international fans, who called it a lie and claimed that Persona is heavily censored nowadays.
But let me explain something: this really was true, but things aren’t quite like that anymore.
Producer Says Persona Is Created for the Japanese Audience
During an interview on the official Xbox Podcast, Wada talked about the series’ growth outside Japan and said that he feels proud and grateful to see Persona reaching players from different countries and cultures.
According to the producer, the team’s philosophy has remained practically the same for decades: create games that the developers themselves find interesting instead of specifically trying to please certain markets.
“Our goal has never simply been to make games for the global market,” Wada explained.
For him, the fact that this approach has resonated with players around the world is one of the most satisfying things for the team.
Atlus Is Investing More in Localization
That doesn’t mean Atlus ignores its international audience, though. Wada explained that the company is now placing more emphasis than ever on localization, quality assurance, and its overall development structure, making sure its games can be enjoyed by players from different regions.
Now let’s get to the point: yes, Atlus’ philosophy really was to create purely JAPANESE games, at least until Persona 5. Starting with Royal, things began to change.
Keep in mind, I’m talking specifically about Persona since I’ve played all of them (yes, even Persona 1 and 2), and they are extremely Japanese.
Persona 3, if I remember correctly, was based on an experience the director went through. He became sick, thought he was going to die, and because of that, Persona 3 is heavily themed around death.
Persona 4 is completely based on Japanese mythology, and the characters act according to their roles within that mythology. Persona 5, meanwhile, was influenced by the 2011 earthquake. The director, seeing everything that was happening in the country because of the disaster, decided to make the story focus on Japanese “villains.”
These three games are purely Japanese and were made with the Japanese audience in mind. They really made the games the way they wanted to.
However, everything changed because of Persona 5. It became the most popular game in the series, appealed to international audiences, and Atlus found itself having to pay more attention to what those audiences expected from future games.
Persona 5 Royal already introduced changes to its story to avoid offending people too much, the Persona 3 remake, Reload, changed A LOT, even altering Yukari’s personality, and Persona 4 Revival has already shown changes to Yosuke for the “modern times.”
So, in the end, he is right.
The original games were made with the Japanese audience in mind, but the remakes and new games apparently are now being developed while also taking the international audience into consideration, including what might or might not cause controversy outside Japan.