Today Atlus announced Soul Hackers 2, a brand new JRPG that brings back the Devil Summoner Megami Tensei sub-series.
The game has been teased for a little less than a week, when a countdown website appeared last Wednesday and several livestreams provided glimpses of characters and locations.
Interestingly, the reveal was made with a livestream featuring a live-action fighting scene set on the grounds of the Kanda Myojin shrine near Akihabara, Tokyo.
It’s going to release in Japan for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC (Steam and Windows Store) on August 25. PC platforms will release on August 26.
Below you can take a look at the trailer and the presentation livestream showing characters and more. This also includes a scene at the beginning in which the hero “Arrow” is literally revived by the “next-generation electronic life form” Ringo and another scene showing the battle system, which is close to that of Persona 5.
The title is a reference to Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers, a JRPG released by Atlus in 1997 for Sega Saturn as a spin-off of the popular Megami Tensei series.
It was then ported to PlayStation in 1999 and 3DS in 2012 when it finally was localized for the west.
Soul Hackers was the second game of a sub-series, following Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner, which was released in 1995 for Sega Saturn and then in 2005 for PSP.
This new game mixes the genres of the original Megami Tensei series and Soul Hackers to portray a story with new characters and technology celebrating the 25th anniversary of the original game. It’s defined as a “hard-boiled JRPG.” It’s set around the half of the 21st century, and the protagonists will once more find themselves trying to prevent the end of the world.
As some may have noticed, the character design is by “Dogs” mangaka and illustrator Shirow Miwa. The director is Eiji Ishida and Mitsuru Hirata is the producer. Among their previous works we find Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey and Tokyo Mirage Session #FE.
As you can see in the trailer, Japan is getting a 25th Anniversary Edition for PS5 and PS4 with a DLC costume, a mini figure, a book, and a CD set.
The first-print bonus in Japan will include a set of costumes and background music from Persona 5.
Incidentally, the Steam version’s release date has been announced as August 26. That tells me that’s likely the western release date as well and it may be announced soon. This is a fairly common pattern for Japanese games. That being said, this is just my speculation, so please take it with the customary grain of salt. Update: I was right.
