Persona 5 will be released in Japan September 15, developer Atlus revealed Thursday during a Japanese live-stream presentation. The news, along with a new trailer, comes at the culmination of a two-week countdown timer, which began ticking down on the game’s official website last month, according to GameSpot. Meanwhile, an anime prequel TV series, Persona 5 the Animation: The Day Breakers, will premiere on Japanese TV in September.
Atlus also released detailed for a special collector’s edition box set to celebrate the Persona series’ 20th anniversary, which falls just five days after the game’s release. (The original Persona was released on the PlayStation in Japan on September 20, 1996.) The collector’s edition will feature an art book and a special edition soundtrack with tracks from across the entire Persona series. The collector’s edition will also include some cosmetic DLC, including costumes from the casts of Persona 3 and Persona 4.
According to IGN, the collector’s edition will cost 13,800 yen in japan, or about $128. There’s no word on whether this particular edition will be released globally.
One might argue the release date technically constitutes yet another slight delay for Persona 5. Originally announced as a PlayStation 3 exclusive in 2013, the game was initially supposed to come out in Japan in late 2014. Since then, Atlus has pushed back the release date multiple times, extending the production by nearly two years, in part so the game can launch on both PS3 and PS4. Atlus last said it was targeting a “Summer 2016” release date during the 2015 Tokyo Game Show.
Atlus has not announced a release date or dates for Persona 5 outside of Japan, or if any of the announced DLC will be released globally. The publisher said more information about the game would be released at E3 2016 in June. Presumably that news will include a North American release date.
