Atlus has shared the latest Persona 5 trailer, which shows off some new mechanics that have never been seen before in the storied franchise. Heading to the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 consoles on April 4, 2017, Persona 5 features the Phantom Thieves, and like previous entries in the series, they will be normal Japanese high-schoolers during the day while taking on evil Shadows at night. This time around, players will travel to the Metaverse through a smartphone, unleashing their true Personas while raising some hell at night. Atlus says the Metaverse is essentially the “collective unconscious” of all mankind, where the most distorted desires of people manifest themselves as Palaces.
Which brings us to one of the first new mechanics. In order to enter a Palace, players will pick a target and figure out certain key pieces of information to plug into their Metaverse Navigator app in order to gain access. Once inside the Palace, the Phantom Thieves must fight hordes of Shadows, solve puzzles, defeat the Palace ruler and steal the target’s deepest darkest desire – which is of course in the form of treasure.
Each target will have a different Palace look and theme and it appears there will be a stealth element to the game. Atlus says if the Thieves get caught too many times, they’ll be kicked out of the Metaverse and can only return the next day.
Even more interesting, once players engage a Shadow in a fight, they will have various options including diplomatic ones, like “Hold Up Shadows” that allows you to negotiate to yield more money, items and even a chance to avoid a battle entirely. The protagonist can even convince them to join the Phantom Thieves to be used as a Persona, or of course, you can just smash them to bits and pieces.
