Atlus plans to eventually bring remasters or remakes of Persona 1 and Persona 2 to modern platforms, according to series producer Kazuhisa Wada in an interview with Rock Paper Shotgun. Wada views such reissues as a form of cultural preservation, stating that creators have a duty to ensure their past works remain accessible.
Persona, originally released in 1996, saw a PSP reissue in 2009 and a Western-unreleased PC port in 1999. While it features school-aged characters, its iconic social links system was introduced in Persona 3. The original Persona game shares similarities with older Shin Megami Tensei titles through its first-person dungeon exploration, contrasted with an isometric third-person perspective for overworld movement.
Persona 2: Innocent Sin, launched in 1999 for the PlayStation, shifted to a third-person perspective for exploration, removing the first-person dungeon crawling.
Wada's comments suggest a commitment to preserving these foundational Persona titles. However, the article's author also raises concerns about the lack of accessibility for several Shin Megami Tensei games, particularly those from the PlayStation 2 era.
While a port of Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne is available on PC with some technical limitations, and a remake of the Raidou Kuzunoha series was released with significant enhancements, titles like Digital Devil Saga and its sequel remain absent from modern platforms. Furthermore, Shin Megami Tensei 4, despite SMT 3 and 5 being available on PC, is still a Nintendo 3DS exclusive.
The author expresses a strong preference for Atlus to prioritize the reissuance of the PS2-era Shin Megami Tensei games before or alongside the Persona remakes, citing their distinct sci-fi severity and the potential for them to be more readily updated. The suggested order of priority for reissues is Shin Megami Tensei 4, Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2, and then Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon.