The long-awaited next entry in the Shin Megami Tensei spinoff series Persona has gotten another delay in the West, as Persona 5 will no longer arrive on its previously announced Valentine's Day release date.
Instead, Persona 5 has been delayed to April 4th, 2017 by Atlus to give the studio more time to work on localizing the game, meaning that, assuming there are no further delays, the game will release over three years after its initial winter 2014 release window.
However, while the delay is sure to sadden many users, there is a bevy of good news to make it far easier to swallow. The first bit is the headline news, which is that Persona 5 will have full dual audio on launch.
This means that there will be a Japanese voiceover in the Western release, and it will be free DLC, making it easy to choose which audio you want; if you want to keep the game in English, you won't have to download the Japanese voiceover.
With the success of the Japanese release, Atlus is working to make the localization better, which may sound like your general reason for a delay. However, Atlus has explained that part of what it's doing is bringing back voice actors to record previously unvoiced lines for the Western release. The developer is also working on more QA to make sure the game is as bug-free as possible.
To help take the sting out of the delay, there is a new PlayStation 4 dynamic theme and avatar set of Ryuji Sakamoto (a.k.a. Skull) available for free for about the next 20 hours or so in the Americas.
Europe will be getting the same offer but not until November 24th. The theme will come back at launch but will cost you money then, so if you are interested in it, you should pick it up now.
Now, for those who are wanting to get some more information about Persona 5, Atlus released several new trailers today, along with streaming some of the gameplay. The first trailer deals with gameplay and how the game has the dual lives for the characters with the normal at school and the supernatural, fantastical events that happen secretly.
It shows some of the events you can expect to see with the social links in the game, so there are some very (incredibly) mild spoilers here.
The second trailer introduces Yusuke Kitagawa and provides a quick glimpse of his character and gameplay.
They also introduced Makoto Niijima in a similar trailer focused on her.
Going further in-depth, they had Cherami Leigh, who voice acts Makoto Niijima. It is her first Persona game, and she talks some about her character and the inner character conflicts that help define her. It does avoid spoilers, something that Leigh and John Hardin (the Atlus PR Representative who is also in the video) appear to be very conscious of.
Finally, they released some new artwork today, including the special Persona 5 "Take Your Heart" premium edition to replace the placeholder art that had been there.
What are your thoughts on Persona 5's delay? Are you still looking forward to it? Share your thoughts in the comments below!