The Persona franchise's 25th anniversary falls in 2021, and although Atlus has been pretty quiet so far, fans are still holding out hope that there's big Persona news on the horizon. After all, Atlus did tease significant plans for this high school JRPG franchise last year. Rumors about a Persona 5 fighting game still circulate. A spinoff like that would seem perfectly appropriate for celebrating Persona's birthday as well as the entry that greatly boosted the franchise's popularity, but there's no sign of the game yet. Another title that some fans think might get announced this year is Persona 6, which would open the door to another new era of Persona.
Strictly speaking, Atlus hasn't even confirmed that Persona 6 is on the way, but it seems probable that it's at some stage of development, if not imminently releasing. At the very least, Atlus has to be planning Persona 6 to some degree, analyzing the success of Persona 5 and looking for new themes to explore in the next game. If Persona 6 focus on a 'modern-day' high school like the games traditionally do, then there's definitely some interesting and relevant themes that the game could look at. Persona fans could get a new game that's much more heavily focused on technology, social media, and online personalities than ever before.
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Persona already makes frequent use of technology. Persona 4 wouldn't be possible without the TVs that the protagonists use to enter the Midnight Channel. Similarly, the Phantom Thieves' heists in the Metaverse are made possible with smartphone navigation apps that open up gateways into Palaces and Mementos. Persona 5 puts an additional emphasis on technology thanks to Futaba Sakura, the master hacker of the Phantom Thieves. An entire arc of the game is devoted to the threat of hacker group Medjed exposing the Phantom Thieves' identities, and it's only resolved when Futaba hacks Medjed instead to rout the threat. Persona has never been afraid to make technology relevant.
One wonders if Persona 6 will lean on technology more heavily, though. If Atlus sticks with a high school setting, then there might be a greater emphasis on technology in school and how it affects the protagonists' lives. Online interactions with fellow students could be more prevalent than interactions during school. Computers or the internet itself might be the gateway to the world of Personas and Shadows this time, with protagonists using a cryptic search engine to delve into specifics parts of this other world. If Atlus opts for a darker theme, a story about surveillance or addiction to technology could come to the forefront of Persona 6. Maybe Atlus could find a new spin on its ideas in Persona 5 Strikers and investigate how supernatural forces and the Internet might blend.
Social media would be a really rich area for Persona 6 to focus on. Persona 5 already made some use of social media thanks to Mishima's Phansite for the Phantom Thieves, but that forum only depicts one slice of the internet. Atlus could cast a wider net by putting social media in the spotlight, involving facsimiles for Facebook, Instagram, and others in the plot. After all, these sites are very popular and influential with high school students. It'd be interesting to see Atlus explore how social media affects the ways teenagers perceive each other in a Persona game.
Persona is a franchise about identity at its core. Each protagonist's Persona represents their true selves and their inner willpower. Only when they accept the deeply held ideals that the Persona represents do Persona users unlock the incredible powers that these beings let them wield. Social media is often criticized as a place where people present false identities and lives to impress others, so Persona 6 could easily explore that area to some degree. The protagonists might contend with social pressure that comes from being on social media and struggle at greater length with their identities. A digital Velvet Room presented similarly to a blog or a Twitter feed could be a good way to represent crafting new Personas with Igor's help too.
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One specific type of Internet user that could come to the forefront of Persona 6 is the social media influencer. Persona 5 Strikers already dabbled in this area thanks to the mysterious EMMA app at the heart of the game's plot and several of the Jail Monarchs that use it. Alice, the first antagonist of Persona 5 Strikers, is a particularly good example of a social media influencer using the Persona world through social media. Persona 6 could return to this idea but look at it from a different perspective. To be specific, Persona 6 might focus more closely on how high schoolers respond to influencers and how that would define the protagonist's school life.
If online personalities become a central part of Persona 6's plot, they could serve as antagonists similar to Persona 5's Tokyo-based villains. However, they could play a unique role by interacting with the game's characters through the Internet exclusively. Real-life influencers from Twitch streamers to YouTube vloggers hold a lot of sway over the lives of young people, so Persona 6 could choose to explore what happens when these kinds of people abuse their power. Persona 6 would have some compelling, relevant antagonists on its hand if it pitted the player character against fictitious Internet personalities corrupted by greed and pride who manipulate young people through their platform. Such people might have an awareness of and control over the world of Shadows, leading to a secret war between Persona users and online celebrities.
Admittedly, Atlus might not want to focus on the Internet because of Persona 5. It dabbled in a lot of these ideas already, both in the original Persona 5 and in the high-action spinoff Persona 5 Strikers. However, these games definitely didn't explore the width and breadth of Persona's potential relationship with the Internet and modern technology. Considering how important being true to oneself is in the Persona games, it'd be great to see Persona 6 think more deeply about how the Internet impacts one's identity and find new ways to connect aspects of modern culture to supernatural forces. Persona is an IP full of potential, so it's no surprise that fans are so desperate to learn what Atlus has to say about it in 2021. If Persona 6 is really what it's planning to talk about this year, then it'll be interesting to see what themes lie at the new game's heart.
Persona 6 is rumored to be in development.