Last week on February 2nd Atlus released their latest game: a remake of their classic Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3, dubbed Persona 3 Reload. The game has attracted players both new and old to relive the game that started Atlus’ modern formula for the Persona series, and as reported by Wario64 on Twitter, Persona 3 Reload has been an insanely massive success, selling 1 million copies in just one week.
As Wario64 explains, this makes Persona 3 Reload the fastest selling game in Atlus history, even beating out the JRPG cultural juggernaut that was Persona 5. That’s not to say that this victory is Persona 3’s alone however, the reason Persona 3 Reload likely sold so much is twofold: many new players who got into the series with Persona 5 are itching for another Persona experience, and many of those same players have likely heard so much good word of mouth about Persona 3 that they will naturally buy a new version of it to experience the game themselves for the first time alongside the older fans who buy the game to relive the memories of a classic JRPG that likely shaped their gaming tastes forever.
This is good news for Atlus, of course any company would be overjoyed to set new records and build momentum for their next product. Though for the players this comes as a bit of a double edged sword. Remakes are a trend in current video games that for many indicate the stagnation of the medium. If Persona 3 Reload, as well as the success of their contemporaries at Capcom with the Resident Evil franchise among others, is any indication to the higher ups at Atlus, then they could very well be looking to remake older Persona titles to generate more sales at less effort such as Persona 4, or even Persona 1 or the Persona 2 duology.
Whether that’s a good thing or not really depends on the reader, and the topic of remakes are ones that are best discussed another day. But for right now, it’s good to see a genre that’s generally looked at with a bit of a side-eye like JRPGs can still make a heavy impact in today’s industry, and if future trends are anything to go by, we’ll be seeing more Japanese RPGs, whether they be remakes or not, moving forward.