Featured Article Summary #260

Persona is a Japanese video game series and media franchise made by Atlus and owned by Sega. It began as a spin-off of Atlus’s Megami Tensei franchise, starting with Revelations: Persona in 1996 for the PlayStation. The games feature a student cast, a mostly silent main character, and battles using “Personas,” with Persona 3 in 2006 shifting the focus toward social simulation through Social Links that affect how Personas evolve. The series explores the human mind and identity, drawing on ideas from Jungian psychology, tarot, and many religious, mythological, and literary influences. It became especially well known outside Japan, with faithful English localizations starting around Persona 2, and it has since sold over 30 million copies worldwide. Persona has also expanded into many other formats, including anime, movies, novels, manga, stage plays, radio dramas, and music events. The main Persona series began with Persona 1: Revelations, released on PlayStation in 1996, with later ports to Windows and PSP as well as expanded availability over time. Persona 2, 3, and 4 follow different student groups facing supernatural threats tied to rumors, darkness, or other strange phenomena, with multiple PSP and re-release versions that added new content and gameplay updates. Persona 5 focuses on students in Tokyo fighting corruption through “thief” disguises, and it later received an enhanced Royal version; the upcoming Persona 6 is planned for worldwide release on multiple major platforms at the same time. Persona has spawned many spin-off games across different genres and platforms. Persona 3 and Persona 4 received browser and fighting-game spin-offs (including Persona Q on 3DS and subsequent rhythm and action games), while Persona 5 continued with releases like Strikers and the tactics game Persona 5 Tactica. Many mobile games have also been made with other Japanese companies, including several Persona 3 and Persona 4 titles, and a Persona 5 mobile game called Persona 5: The Phantom X released in 2025. In the Persona series, players fight enemies such as demons, Shadows, and Personas during dungeon-crawling segments. Battles are turn-based: you choose actions like physical attacks, magic, using items, guarding, or escaping, and hitting an enemy’s weakness deals extra damage; from Persona 3 onward, critical hits can grant an extra turn and knocking all enemies down enables a powerful “All Out Attack.” While the core gameplay stays similar, each game adds its own twist—Persona uses a grid-based battle system, Persona 2 switches to free movement, Persona 4 uses story-linked weather instead of lunar phases, and Persona 5 adds platforming and stealth. In the Persona series, “Personas” are physical forms of a character’s mind and subconscious that they use in combat. Each game’s Personas are themed differently (Greco-Roman myths, Japanese gods, or outlaws and thieves), and they are summoned in different ways such as after a parlor game, using an Evoker device, breaking Tarot cards, or removing masks. Personas can attack, heal, cure, or cause status effects, and characters begin with an initial Persona that can evolve or be created and improved through fusion and Skill Cards; from Persona 3 onward, the main character’s “Wild Card” lets them use multiple Personas.