Since the release of Persona 5, beloved Japanese developer Atlus has undergone several major changes that have heavily affected the trajectory of the series going forward. One of the biggest internal changes comes from many of the key developers of the Persona franchise moving on to other projects or outright leaving the company, such as how many of the Persona 5 team are currently working on Project Re Fantasy. Today, longtime Persona and Shin Megami Tensei series composer Shoji Meguro has announced that he has left Atlus to work on an independent sci-fi JRPG.
Shoji Meguro joined Atlus in 1995 and got his start at the company as a composer for Revelations: Persona, the very first installment in the now beloved Persona franchise, alongside three other artists. While Meguro would not return for Persona 2: Innocent Sin and Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, his track “Aria of the Soul” would become a series staple, now iconic as the music that accompanies the Velvet Room in almost every Persona game. Instead, Meguro was contributing to titles such as Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne, Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga, and Trauma Center: Under the Knife.
In 2006, Meguro returned to the Persona series with the soundtrack for Persona 3, which would go on to become a major success notably due to its J-pop inspired music. The soundtrack for Persona 3 alone sold over 100,000 copies in Japan. During his work on the music for Persona 4 and Persona 5, Meguro would win numerous awards and perform the games’ music at many stadium shows in Japan. Shoji Meguro even went on to direct the remakes of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona and the Persona 2 games for the PSP, making his debut as a video game director.
It’s likely due to this that Meguro announced today that he departed Atlus in late September to finish work on a science-fiction JRPG that he has been developing on his own on Unreal Engine 4 for the past five years. The game is currently known as “Megarock” and will be showcased at the upcoming INDIE Live Winter 2021 showcase on November 5th. An important thing to mention is that Meguro has confirmed that he will still contribute to Atlus projects as a freelance video game composer.
While Meguro has already contributed to in-development projects like Project Re Fantasy, which is being headed by most of the team behind Persona 5 including game director Katsura Hashino (leading a new internal team known as Studio Zero), it seems increasingly likely that the next Persona game will be a new beginning for the series. Given that a lot of the series’ veterans have moved on, having worked on Persona 3, Persona 4, and Persona 5, it’s likely that Atlus is planning to give Persona 6 to a new internal team which could be what the series needs to breathe new life into it heading into a new generation.
Source: Persona Central
