Persona 5 Trailer Released

Atlus has released a new trailer for Persona 5, the next installment of their hit JRPG video game series.

The nearly three-minute long trailer gives us a sampling of what appears to be the games' opening, its menus, animated cut scenes, and in-engine gameplay. You'll also quickly notice the prevalence of the color red as a theme, in the same way that the color blue was in Persona 3 and the color yellow was in Persona 4.

Check it out below:

For those uninitiated, the Persona series is a spinoff of the Shin Megami Tensei series, which is itself a subset of the Megami Tensei franchise. The franchise itself is a JRPG series that sets itself apart from its monolithic contemporaries, like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, but embracing darker themes, occult motifs, and a more modern setting.

The Persona series is something of a cross between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Pokémon. The protagonists are high school children gifted with the ability to summon personas, powerful supernatural beings that represent their inner selves. The main player protagonist is also able to capture and use enemy demons as persona, and fuse them together to make new ones. The turn-based combat and dungeon crawling is only half of the game, with the other half being dedicated to the characters' high schools lives, and developing strong emotional bonds that will help create stronger persona.

The series did not really take off in the west until the release of Persona 3 on the PlayStation 2 in 2007, which was quickly followed by Persona 4 in 2008. Since then the popularity of the series has allowed for several console and handheld rereleases, ports, and spinoff games to be released, including the Persona 4 Arena fighting game, Persona Q dungeon crawler, and the Persona 4: Dancing All Night rhythm game. However, with it being over six years since the release of an original game in the core Persona series, fans are eager to see what the next installment brings.

Persona 5 is slated for release on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 in 2015.