Persona 6 Could Have Similar Story Beats to Final Fantasy 15
During the early development days of Persona 5, one of the earliest concepts for the game was to center the story on a road trip. Specifically game director Katsura Hashino wanted the game to center around a journey of self-discovery, both for the protagonist and the characters around him. That was scrapped in favor of the traditional high school setting of Persona 3 and Persona 4, but that doesn't mean a future Persona game couldn't adopt that type of globe-trotting journey.
JRPGs are often known for their grand journeys across towns, cities, countries, continents, all around the world. Final Fantasy 15 is known best for its road trip dynamic with the party, as a bunch of bros cruise the countryside in their luxury land yacht. For Persona games, it's always been different, focusing in on specific locations as small as the town of Inaba or as large as the city of Tokyo. Some remnants of distant travel still linger in Persona 5, but the game always returned to Tokyo eventually. Assuming the next Persona game wants to adopt Persona 5's original concept, the game would do best to borrow some inspiration from Final Fantasy 15's road trip efforts.
Katsura Hashino was the creative director of Persona that originally conceived the concept of melding a social simulator with a JRPG. The innovations introduced in Persona 3 have served as a foundation for every subsequent mainline release since. Once Hashino stated he initially intended to implement a new storytelling concept for Persona 5. Rather than the usual burgeoning of friendships in a typical high school setting, Hashino wanted players to connect with the outside world by leaving the school setting. Akin to that of a backpacking trip, initial scenarios and concepts were designed to expand far beyond the confines of Tokyo.
There was one defining moment in Hashino's life, and many others' lives, that made him decide against this concept: The Great East Japan Earthquake. In the aftermath of that natural disaster in 2011, Hashino was driven to bring Persona 5 back to real-life Japan. Hashino essentially felt the entirety of Japan's social conscious had changed in the face of crisis. He took the many design concepts and ideas of traveling the world and implemented them into the Metaverse destinations in the game. Persona 5 is very much a game built off Japanese pride in the face of great crisis, and a lot of those feelings are evident in the game's conflict.
While Persona 5 never got to fully realize its long distance aspirations, another famous JRPG series centered an entire mainline release around this concept. While Final Fantasy 15 was praised overall, one of its most appreciated aspects was the road trip dynamic between Noctis and his entourage. While the story somewhat justified Noctis' purpose during the road trip, the journey was most memorable because of the crew that ran with him. Noctis' bonds with his lifelong friends strengthen more during the trip than they ever perceivably could have before, with each character getting one-on-one time with the player throughout the experience.
Other games are starting to pick up on the road trip trend as well, from other triple-A games to indie releases as well. The upcoming Sci-Fi MMO Outriders intends to capture a similar road trip vibe with its roaming crew, but several indie games like Jalopy or My Summer Car are also attempting to capture the spirit of the open road. JRPGs have had world-spanning journeys before, with similar concepts to a road trip, but never in a faithful adaptation of one. Final Fantasy games in the past had done something similar with airships, but the fictional aircraft didn't evoke the same feeling of intimacy that a genuine road trip does.
If the next mainline Persona game wants to capture that road trip spirit, there will likely be some significant changes. For one thing, how many high schoolers often have the chance to go on a long distance road trip for an entire year? The current narrative framework of Persona games simply wouldn't fit with this concept, at least not realistically or plausibly. Something that might make more sense would be college students going on a study abroad trip, something to that effect. Whether that's exploring another country for a few semesters or simply exploring all of Japan instead, the road trip concept would at least make more sense there.
Study abroad trips in college typically attract a whole variety of people, many of which don't know each other very well, if at all. Protagonists of Persona games typically find themselves in a new region where they need to make new friends, which would be perfect for a study abroad trip. Studying abroad typically leads to people visiting multiple new and unfamiliar regions for everyone involved, which would be perfect for what Hashino initially intended for Persona 5. Exposing Persona characters to a variety of cultures, societies, and ideas is something each game has already done, but through a classroom. This would be the perfect opportunity to do so in a more direct fashion.
Plus with Hashino moving on to a new development studio and project, the time to innovate for Persona is never better. The Persona development team could use Final Fantasy 15 as proof of concept, or at least it suffices for a start. It'd be interesting to see Hashino's "backpacking trip" concept come to life in a mainline Persona game, and now may be the perfect time to do so.
Persona 6 is reportedly in development.
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