Why Katsura Hashino Shifted from Persona to Epic Fantasy RPG Metaphor: ReFantazio

Exploring the New Realm of Fantasy: Metaphor: ReFantazio

Persona 5 helped catapult the role-playing game (RPG) genre into mainstream success, but it’s also a title with a long and detailed development history. Early conceptualizations of the next installment began back in 2008, right after the release of Persona 4, with full-scale development kicking off three years later. As the launch of Persona 5 approached in 2016, director Katsura Hashino, who has been a pivotal force behind the franchise since Persona 3, gathered his team to discuss their next big project. The consensus was clear: the team wanted to create a fantasy RPG.

Diving into Fantasy: The Birth of Metaphor: ReFantazio

Enter Metaphor: ReFantazio, an epic RPG launching on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC on October 11th. In many ways, it echoes themes familiar to Persona fans, featuring sleek menus, engaging turn-based combat, and gameplay mechanics centered around forging meaningful relationships with characters. However, this new title steps away from the modern-day Japan setting of Persona, venturing into a rich high-fantasy realm teeming with fairies, kingdoms, and monstrous humans.

The Story Unfolds: Royal Decrees and Adventure

The narrative kicks off with the assassination of a king, triggering a fierce competition to discover his successor. Hashino believes that the fantasy genre provides a unique opportunity to explore concepts that would be challenging to express in contemporary settings. He was particularly eager to develop a game that embodied the quintessential journey often found in fantasy narratives—something that's harder to illustrate when the protagonists are high school students.

Addressing Real-World Issues Through Fantasy

Despite its fantastical setting, Metaphor does not shy away from tackling pressing real-world issues. Hashino employs the fantasy framework to discuss deep topics, with anxiety positioned as a core theme. "Thematically, we put anxiety as the central focus of the game," he explains. "We wanted to address the universal nature of anxiety, and a real-world portrayal would necessitate diving into very particular aspects of modern life, potentially overwhelming our narrative with specifics.”

Anxiety as a Tangible Force

In Metaphor, anxiety is portrayed not merely as an emotional state but as a visible manifestation floating in the environment, presenting a unique challenge for players to navigate. As Hashino puts it, “That is something that we wouldn’t really be able to do in the real world; it’s a more abstract kind of idea.”

The Challenges of World-Building

Shifting from a modern-day setting to fantasy posed its own set of challenges, particularly in terms of world-building. Hashino, who once found inspiration by traversing city streets for Persona titles, engaged in a rigorous study of fantasy literature, revisiting classics like The Lord of the Rings. However, he quickly recognized that simply reproducing existing tropes would not yield a truly original experience.

Creating a Unique Fantasy Experience

"If we tried to imitate any part of the existing fantasy canon in terms of characters, settings, or lore, we would merely produce a derivative work. Therefore, I decided that we should aim to create a fantasy game that could only come from us," Hashino reflects. This approach allowed the team to build a fresh experience, leading to innovations in how characters within their fabricated world think and behave. For example, while one can easily imagine Tokyo residents reacting bizarrely if anxiety particles filled the atmosphere, the inhabitants of Metaphor accept these phenomena as ordinary.”

A Unique Creative Journey

Ultimately, Metaphor: ReFantazio offers both Hashino and his team the fulfillment they seek—a new frontier in gaming. The endeavor has challenged them to create a distinctive world and to explore the psychological depth of its characters in ways they had never approached in the Persona series. “Stepping into the minds of the inhabitants of this fantasy universe and understanding their perspectives has been a truly enriching journey," Hashino concludes. "It's a creative venture unlike any I have embarked upon in my previous work.”