As its title suggests,Persona 5: The Phantom Xis a direct spin-off ofPersona 5, taking place in the same rendition of Tokyo, and following many of the same characters, without being a proper sequel.Persona 5: The Phantom X’s storyunfolds in an alternate reality, one that exists in parallel to that of thePersona 5base game, and while multiverse stories are a dime a dozen these days,P5X’s adoption of this narrative trope could have particularly unexpected consequences.
Spoilers forPersona 5ahead.
Persona 5: The Phantom Xdoesn’t get too in the weeds with explanations about its parallel universe: there aren’t in-depth sci-fi-style justifications for the game’s existence. Rather, it’s clear that the alternate reality premise serves a mostly practical purpose, designed to allow developers the greatest degree of freedom when adding new content. IfP5Xwere to simply be a non-numbered entry in thePersonaseries, cut off fromPersona 5, it wouldn’t be able to reincorporate the latter’s narrative elements. But the fact that this narrative incorporation comes by way of multiverse storytelling means that, for better or worse, all thePersonagames are now definitively connected, birthing a number of possible implications for the broader series.
Persona 5: The Phantom Xnot only crosses over withPersona 5but also features content from other games in the series, includingPersona 3.
Why Persona 5: The Phantom X’s Multiverse Storytelling Is Significant
Persona 5: The Phantom X Links the Persona Games to a Greater Degree Than Ever Before
Atlus has historically approached thePersonacontinuityin an intentionally vague manner. Of course, these games are all part of the same series and share connective tissue in the form of the Personas and characters like Igor, but they don’t directly connect with each other.Personahas always been more like an anthology series, composed of standalone narratives revolving around the same supernatural concepts and broad-strokes themes.The Phantom Xchanges that.
Now, not only have the gaps between thePersonagames been bridged, but the series' sense of consequences may have been altered as well. For example,Persona 5’s Goro Akechi, a character who presumably dies in the base game, is available as a playable character inP5X, suggesting that death in the series is no longer permanent. In other words, P5Xhas walked into the same trap as the likes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe: its stakes have been diluted by virtue of the multiverse’s infinite potential.The Phantom Xhand-waves these parallel universe elements away, not exactly encouraging players to think critically about them, but this could become easier said than done as time goes on.
Persona’s Newfound Multiverse Concepts Could Make Things Messy Down the Road
With thePersonagames now being definitively linked, and characters fromPersona 5interacting with those from other entries in the series, future games may have to be written a bit differently. ComePersona 6, it could be difficult not to wonder why Joker and company aren’t helping out the player-character; after all, they assisted Wonder in his journey. The series' canon has become both bigger and smaller, the connections between each entry being harder to ignore.
This is to say nothing of the potential for other Megatencrossover content inPersona 5: The Phantom X. If characters from, say,RAIDOU Remastered: Mystery of the SoullessArmyorShin Megami Tensei 5were to be added in futureP5Xupdates, then the loose, tangential Megaten canon could crystallize, becoming less flexible. It will be more challenging to think of each Megaten game as its own story, since the various plots ofSMT,Devil Summoner,Soul Hackers, et al., will have been merged. If Atlus wants to keep fans coming back for moreP5Xin the long run, then such crossover content seems likely.
