Why Setting Persona 5 on College Would Be a Great Idea

I have no doubts that Atlus is already working over Persona 5. Of course, the question is when they will see fit to announce it. The Persona series have achieved a lot of praise in recent years and also have achieved some great sales numbers, so I see no reason to not make it. Of course, at the moment, we can only speculate how the game will be. And I want it to be set on college. Why?

First, a change of setting would do great to make Persona 5 not feel like a rehearse of their previous games, all with high school settings. A fresh environment would attract the attention of the players and also allow for new possibilities in story telling and social links. People are older, are more independent in relation to their families and have worries that teenagers don't quite have.

But also, if my experience on college is to go by, college students are not that different from high school students, with their classes, their parties, their immaturity. basically, we just drank more, there were more sex and such. So, moving to college would allow a sense of novelty but also allow some familiarity at the same time. It would open new possibilities on story and character development but also keep the younger players in a familiar environment.

Moving to college also would allow the use of some of the old characters from previous games, either as teachers or as fellow students. Fan service of this kind would speak high for the game, but also would allow interactions between the old, experienced cast with the new one. It would be a nice experience to see the older characters sharing their experiences with the new ones and open up to explore new social links.

Probably not this way.

Moving to college would be a very smart move for Atlus commercially. Many people who complaint about the Persona games in Western markets is about the fact that the main characters are all high school kids, so putting an older cast would help people to identify themselves with them. But also, the cast would not be too old so the younger players would not identify themselves within the cast. Since Catherine was successful with its older cast and situations, I not see any reason to not do it again.

Also, by dealing with college students instead of high school, the characters gain a lot more freedom to do their thing. The characters would be adults, therefore less susceptible to be restrained by adults in any way, but yet they would have a normal life to attend too. So you would still need to balance your normal life with the life of the occult fighters.

I don't now what Atlus is planning, but since they have striking good games after good games, specially in the Shin Megami Tensei universe, I am very hopeful they will pull out a great game, even if they keep the high school setting. But changing the settings would be great, a welcome change of pace for me.