New Persona 5 Trailer: Infiltrating Perilous Palaces and Dealing with Shadows

Those of you who have played the Persona games before are more than familiar with the series' core premise: you're a Japanese high school student that travels to a different world to fight evil and make the world a better place. Key features of this other world are the dungeons you crawl through to fight some evil monster and save the metaphorical princess.

The Phantom Thieves of Persona 5 are no different, living dual lives of students and expungers of evil. However, in this game the other world is known as the Metaverse and it's effectively the collective subconsciousness of all mankind. As a result, people's inner desires manifest here, with the strongest ones becoming full fledged palaces that the Phantom Thieves infiltrate to rid the owner of their dark and twisted desires.

Yes, you read that right: infiltrate. Stealth is a key component in the game, as getting caught too often results in the alarm triggering and you being kicked out of the Palace. Yes, you can retry the Palace. The next day that is. Ambushing the Shadows that wander around the Palace likewise is essential to the successful conclusion of the mission.

What's potentially even more interesting is the inclusion of diplomatic solutions. Instead of attacking the player can choose to Hold Up a Shadow to negotiate with them, potentially increasing the rewards or even avoid combat altogether. Some might even be persuaded to join the Phantom Thieves as a Persona! Cleave skulls first and ignore questions later is still a valid strategy though, so feel free to slaughter your way to the boss whenever you want to.

Check out the trailer above to see for yourself.

Persona 5 will be released on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 on 4th April.