During this year's Tokyo Game Show, Atlus announced that the highly anticipated "Persona 5" was going to be delayed yet again. From a Winter 2014 release date to late 2015 the game has now been pushed back even further to Summer 2016.
"Persona 5" game director Katsura Hashino immediately explained in an interview (via Daily Motion) the reasons for the delay and apologized to fans for making them wait even longer than expected.
During the interview, Hashino explained that all the "parts" of the game have already been completed at this time and that the main task now was to tune-up gameplay and to put it all together in a well-polished manner that would meet the standards Atlus and the fans hold the franchise up to.
Hashino did confirm that the game's development is still going smoothly and that the team is simply working to ensure that "Persona 5" releases as a complete, high-quality title.
During the interview, he did explain that the new feature shown off in the Tokyo Game Show trailer was the ability to "steal hearts." Hashino stated that this mechanic would play an important part in the game's story. He also stated that "Persona 5" would be the largest game in the series in terms of content and game time.
"Persona 5" continues the trend of the franchise of focusing on a goup of students who all have the ability to interact with the paranormal world. This game switches things up a bit by making the main cast a band of "good" thieves who are constantly being chased by the game's antagonists.
In light of the main theme the game's, personas are seemingly based on iconic thieves in pop culture and history such as Goemon Ishikawa and Arsene Lupin. During the day, the gamer will go about regular high school life and during the night will interact with the paranormal world.
"Persona 5" will release for the Playstation 3 and PlayStation 4 in summer 2016.
