The Phantom Thieves return to steal our hearts

The Persona games are no strangers to spin-off games. Personas 3-5 have each received their own dance and rhythm game. The P4 universe also delved into the fighting game world with Persona 4 Arena and some of its characters featured in team fighter BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle. Let’s also not forget the first-person dungeon crawling Persona Q games. The most recent of these spin-offs is a Musou-style horde brawler like the ones popularized by the Dynasty Warriors series. Naturally, with appetites whetted from P5 Royal, fans are awaiting information on this action-based spin-off’s, titled Persona 5 Scramble, western release date.

The wait has been long for any news at all about the hotly anticipated game’s release in the west but we finally have something to go by.

When Was P5 Scramble Released in Japan?

Koei Tecmo’s Warriors-style take on Persona 5 was released in Japan earlier this year, on February 20th. It later saw an Asia and South Korea release on June 18th. In both regions, Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers – the game’s wordy title – has been met with positive reviews and sales reaching over 480,000 units. Importers who’ve been able to get their mitts on a copy have also praised both its gameplay and story, which we talk about later in this post.

What’s the Persona 5 Scramble Western Release Window?

In a recent financial report for Q1 of this fiscal year, the eagle-eyed people over at Persona Central spotted a Persona 5 Scramble listing. They report that the listing places the P5 spin-off in the company’s lineup for western releases. This means exactly what you’re hoping. Scramble will be coming to both US and Europe sometime within this fiscal year, which ends on March 2021. There’s no concrete date yet. The game being in the listing, though, confirms beyond a doubt that we will eventually be seeing it in western shelves and storefronts.

What Platforms Will The Game Release On?

The Japan, Asia and South Korean releases of The Phantom Strikers have all been on the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4. There is no reason to believe this won’t be the case for a Persona 5 Scramble western release as well. In fact, the spin-off’s release on the Switch has also sparked hopes of P5 Royal eventually landing on the hybrid console. There has been no word on a PC or Xbox release for either game.

What is Persona 5 Scramble?

In case you’ve been living in a no-Persona 5 news bubble, Atlus licensed Koei Tecmo of Dynasty Warriors fame to make a spin-off game out of their critically acclaimed JRPG. Dubbed a hack-and-slash role playing game, Persona 5 Scramble combines the horde clearing action of Musou games with the turn-based combat and the exploration mechanics of P5. The game’s story takes place 6 months after the events of Persona 5. Upon returning for a reunion with the rest of the Phantom Thieves, the Main Character – known as Akira in the anime – and Morgana along with their old crew members are thrust back into heart-changing action. While planning a camping trip, they are given access to an app titled EMMA. Like the Metanav, EMMA sends the Persona 5 to another world which is fragmented into Jails. With reports of people being attacked by Shadows in the Jails, the Phantom Thieves once again don their cowls and set off to do their thing. Combat occurs in both action and turn-based flavors. The Phantom Thieves can still make use of their personas. Naturally, Joker can still collect, fuse and make use of multiple personas which are now dropped after defeating enemies.

Now that we have a confirmation for a Persona 5 Scramble western release, it’s only a matter of time before official announcements are made. We expect with the pandemic affecting development and distribution lines, it may arrive later rather than sooner. Until then, you’ve got plenty of time to catch up to some Persona goodness. There’s also official confirmation that the Persona 5 anime will be receiving an English dub…if you’re willing to fork over for the Blu-Ray collection.