First up is a glimpse at Persona 5 Striker’s new character, Sophie the phone girl. After materializing from a box (it’s a thing), Sophie only takes human-ish form in Jails, warped parts of the Metaverse popping up in key places around Japan.
She also wields a power similar to Persona, though with some key differences. Outside the Jails, Sophie lives in Joker’s phone.
Powerful Shadows rule the Jails, working through prominent individuals to effect changes of heart across swathes of the population. Naturally, it falls to the Phantom Thieves to re-group and uncover the truth behind these phenomena before the entire population falls under the Shadows’ sway.
What that translates to is a truckload of butt-kickings, as the Phantom Thieves face off against hordes of lesser Shadows along the way. The new Persona 5 Strikers trailer shows the game’s blend of combat styles in action, with familiar features such as Baton Passes and exploiting elemental weaknesses sitting alongside musou’s traditional one-versus-one-thousand gameplay.
Finally, it’s worth mentioning the trailer hints at more than one gameplay style. A brief segment at 0:22 shows a side-scrolling platformer section where Ryuji tries reaching a treasure chest. How this plays out in other jails remains to be seen, but suffice to say, each Jail is a pretty big affair like their Palace counterparts in Persona 5.
Persona 5 Strikers releases February 23 for PlayStation 4 (backwards compatible with PlayStation 5) and Nintendo Switch. Meanwhile, soak up all the Persona 5 Strikers music you can in the trailer because it’s one of just a few Persona soundtracks you won’t find on Spotify.
