Persona 5 Strikers preview: A new way to play with the Phantom Thieves

A Whole New Adventure

Things are not quite as normal as the Phantom Thieves had planned for.

Someone is messing with the cognitive world across all of Japan again, and thanks to their reputation, the Phantom Thieves have become the number one suspects of the nationwide Public Security department. All eyes are on Joker as they try to find any opportunity to arrest him and falsely accuse him of those crimes once again.

After accidentally stumbling into the Metaverse once again, however, the Phantom Thieves quickly discover that this is much bigger then themselves. Someone is in the cognitive world stealing people’s desires, which causes people in the real world to lose their minds and act completely irrationally. Now it is up to the Phantom Thieves to once again suit up and dive headfirst into the Metaverse to steal back the desires of society and once again save the world.

However, with a new adventure comes new allies.

First, a mysterious AI girl found deep in the underground of the cognitive world, all Sophia remembers before Joker awoke her from her sleep is one phrase: “I am Sophia, humanity’s companion”. Armed with persona-esque abilities and the entire Internet at her disposal, Sophia (voiced by Megan Taylor Harvey) tags along with the Thieves in an attempt to retrieve her memories, but also help humanity.

However, the best performance in the whole game belongs to the shady but lovable Zenkichi Hasegawa, voiced by Tom Taylorson (Mccree from Overwatch). Zenkichi works for PubSec, but unlike the rest of the department, thinks the Phantom Thieves are innocent and will stop at nothing to find the true culprit. He is a man of mystery but also of justice, a man of confidence who can be easily rattled, a reliable man with questionable ways of retrieving info. His support in the real world is what makes the Thieves’ new adventure possible.

With a whole new adventure also came an exciting change in gameplay for the series.