Persona's modern high school setting is "sort of limited," but going medieval fantasy with Metaphor: ReFantazio gave the JRPG's devs "a lot of freedom to explore"

The director of Persona 3, 4, and 5 has been talking more about the fantasy setting of his new upcoming JRPG, Metaphor: ReFantazio, and how it gave Atlus "a lot more freedom to explore various things" in comparison to the beloved Persona series. 

Even if it's coming from the same developers, Metaphor: ReFantazio – as its name suggests – is set to boast quite a different setting from Persona. Unlike a modern-day Japanese high school setting like fans know and love in Persona 5 Royal and Persona 3 Reload, Metaphor takes place in the United Kingdom of Euchronia – a land filled with a diverse population of people from different tribes, like the horned Clemar and animal-eared Paripus. In an interview with GamerBraves, director Katsura Hashino says that the Persona series is "fairly limited or fixed" in its setting when compared to the studio's upcoming release.

"If you compare it with the modern setting of the Persona series, it's fairly limited or fixed in terms of location and time," Hashino begins. "It's modern-day high schoolers, and the problems they face are problems that you can expect to face in the real world, so it's sort of limited in that sense. And because of that, this time we created a whole new world and had a lot of freedom to explore various things."

In a different interview with Polygon, Hashino recently revealed that he previously "didn't really know much about fantasy," but he met up with "a bunch of different Japanese fantasy creators," including the designer of Neon Genesis Evangelion's mechs, Ikuto Yamashita, who told Hashino, "Don't let yourself be hemmed in." Hashino says this "really helped" him decide to take Metaphor in its own, unique direction.

Nier creator Yoko Taro says Persona devs' new JRPG Metaphor: ReFantazio is "so stylish I almost wet myself," and no, he "didn't get any money" to say that.