Persona 5 director explains why you can't date your friends in his new JRPG Metaphor: ReFantazio

[Playstation Tablet 1,772]

These motherfuckers making a other 150 hour game? 

 

Katsura Hashino, the director of Metaphor as well as Persona 3, 4, and 5, says the team is well aware that "people really like this system and it's really popular," but the reason it was included in the Persona games in the first place was because it added to "the realism of the setting." The same couldn't be said for the upcoming JRPG, he explains, which has a very different setting.

 

For us, the reason we included romance in previous games is that a lot of our games are based around the idea of teenagers living their lives. What teenager doesn't want to have romance in their life? It's part of the realism of the setting," Hashino reveals. "We know people really like this system and it's really popular, but for this game specifically, it's not about teenagers. It's about a person trying to become the ruler of the land. They are more focused on the relationships between a ruler and the people who support them.

"You travel from place to place and you meet these new characters, you gain support from them, you learn things from them, they support you, they inspire you," he continues. "You gain these Archetypes that you bring into the game world. It's more focused on those relationships rather than the back-and-forth of romance."

Elaborating further, Hashino explains that the development team starts off making any game by thinking about what "we are trying to achieve" and "what sort of game" the studio wants it to be. In doing so, the developers consider "what systems fit," and ultimately: "You throw out what you think won't work and take what you think will." Clearly, romance just didn't make the cut.