Metaphor: ReFantazio launches October 11

■ Introduction

Hello everyone, I’m Katsura Hashino, the director of this title. For those that may not know me, I’ve worked on titles such as Shin Megami Tensei III, Persona 3, Persona 4, and Persona 5, among others.

Our program today is about Alice’s upcoming RPG, Metaphor, to share the latest information with you. As we announced in the trailer earlier, the release date is confirmed. The entire team is grateful for the positive feedback we’ve received since the announcement. But for some of you, perhaps this is the first time you’re seeing Metaphor.

This work is being brought to you by not only the Persona team, but in collaboration with renowned artists to create a brand new RPG. With this team, we decided to challenge the fantasy genre, aiming to create a game we can call a culmination of our RPGs. Our hope is that not only ATLUS fans, but those who have never played our games and RPG fans around the world will give this game a shot.

Today, we’d like to spend some time introducing the gameplay experience of Metaphor as I talk over while playing the game. Please check out the ATLUS YouTube channel for more information that will come further down the line. We’d love your support. Please subscribe.

Story

Before I start playing, let me introduce the premise of the story.

In this game, you’ll be forging bonds to support your claim for the throne. But it’s the unique take on this that we hope puts a spin on the classic tale. In a kingdom thrown into chaos by the king’s assassination, a royal magic is triggered that establishes an election. This magic allows any individual of any social status to become the next king by gaining the people’s support, which sets a battle for the throne in motion. The protagonist gets involved, and the journey will take him around the world. It’s a journey that I hope you enjoy as it’s unique to this game.

You’ll meet various allies of different tribes, rivals who stand by their own ideologies, and terrifying monsters called humans will stand in your way, the stories brimming with fateful encounters like this. Above all else, a game offers a different experience than a movie or novel, so to prevent this from becoming just a vehicle for our tale, we’ve gone to great lengths to flesh out the experience into an exciting, fully-fleshed game. There’s lots to be excited about, so I hope you’ll stay with us till the end. Let’s get started, shall we?

■ Gameplay

Opening

The title’s logo design is based on the concept of a city’s main street. It conveys our hope that players will enjoy a journey through a world full of diverse tribes. If you don’t mind, let’s start at the beginning. What makes Metaphor different from other fantasy RPGs is the perspective of their world in which our world is their fantasy. After players enter their name, they must answer the questions. Is fantasy limited to the confines of imagination? Would you call it a powerless creation? The game questions the power of fantasy, a power we all possess. I hope the game helps you arrive to your own conclusions.

Field Exploration

Our protagonist’s journey and goal is to save the prince who has been cursed. This is a scene from the beginning of the game. What differentiates this from previous ATLUS RPGs is that we’ve added a more dynamic sense of action. The turn-based battles are still central to the combat, but we’ve incorporated real-time attacking and dodging elements, as well as dashing around and analyzing to keep things exciting.

At the beginning of the game, the protagonist isn’t strong yet, so the difficulty of the battles is intentionally pretty high in this area. We wanted players to get a sense of both tension and accomplishment. I might die if I risk fighting right now, so I’ll explore cautiously during this segment. That said, there are multiple difficulty levels and convenience factors to make things easier, so we hope anyone who wants to play can enjoy it. I can at least cast my usual spell for you.

About the Music

In this scene, our fairy companion casts a musical spell. The music you hear in-game is in the protagonist’s head. The composer behind the music is Shoji Meguro. People probably know him from the Persona series, but I’ve asked him not to be constrained by his trademark pop style and to take on the challenge of creating a totally new sound to fit this game’s world. We hope you’ll look forward to hearing it.

Field Exploration

This is a particularly large area in the game, and you can see hordes of enemies ahead. One exciting aspect of this game is that you can decide which enemies to fight and how to deal with them. But I’ll explain more about battles later. First, let’s take a walk around a city.

■ Life on the Road: Cityscape

The Journey’s Daily Life

This is the first stop on our journey, the Royal Capital Grand Trad. The background art was designed by Koda Kazuma, a guest artist we’re thrilled to work with. The dynamic architecture comes to life with a unique sense of realism in medieval painting like shaders, so I hope you enjoy taking it in.

Here we are at the city entrance, and you probably noticed the massive armored vehicle. The protagonist will ride around in this to travel the world. The original designs of these vehicles were created by Ikuto Yamashita. I’ll get into the journey aspect in a little bit, so let’s walk around the city a bit more.

Using magic, you can ride around on your sword to get from one place to another quickly. I wouldn’t define this game as being open world, but we took care to flesh out even the distant backgrounds so you can feel the unique atmosphere of every location.

Now we’re heading toward an alley. The atmosphere changes a lot from the main street. This is where executions happen. That’s not something you see very often in modern day stories. You’ll also note some people cowering in the streets because this world has a prevalent gap between rich and poor.

As for our protagonist, he’s a boy from an inferior tribe, abhorred by others. Despite his social standing, he’s going to participate in the royal tournament. You’ll find many problems in each town you visit, and of course people will need your help. His interactions affect his popularity in the race.

Let’s check out the town map.

World Map

You can see where you’re currently located and then instantly move anywhere you’ve previously visited. This should help make the journey more comfortable. Let’s zoom out to the map of the entire kingdom. This is the royal capital where we are now. In this world, the areas between cities are dangerous areas referred to as wastelands, which makes travel difficult, unlike our world today. As the story progresses, your main hub moves from city to city. And with that, let’s take a look at a new city.

Old Castle Town Martira

This is Martira, a town we’re unveiling for the first time. It’s a pastoral town, quite a contrast from the capital. It may be normal in other fantasy RPGs, but through these acts of traveling and staying at new places, I hope you get a true sense of being on a journey, which is a difficult thing to convey in modern-day stories. By incorporating a unique sense of daily life into traveling, we’ve made taking a trip feel as real as possible in this game. You’ll encounter all sorts of things on the road, so please look forward to how the story unfolds.

The Various Facilities in Town

Let’s drop in at the “Recruitment Centre” in this city. Here you take requests to fight dangerous monsters. These threats to the city are called Bounties. Bounties give you some nice rewards, which hopefully encourages you to challenge them. And that’s really just one of many challenging aspects the game has to offer.

This is the Weapons Shop. Each city you stay in has various facilities, and in this game your choice of equipment is especially important. In Metaphor, we wanted to give you the freedom to customize your party your own way, so we hope you’ll even find some joy in making preparations to explore dungeons in your own style.

Let’s enter the Tavern. I see an Informant here. Informants offer hints about dungeons and battle strategies. Even collecting information like this is something we put a lot of thought into making enjoyable. The back of the Tavern is actually an inn. Visiting a new town and staying at a new inn, that’s half the fun of traveling, isn’t it?

There’s so much to do in these cities and towns that I can’t cover at all, so stay tuned for further announcements. Moving on, let’s hop into the Gauntlet Runner and head to the battlefield.

■ Gauntlet Runner

Traveling with the Gauntlet Runner

The Gauntlet Runner is a vehicle that can travel safely across wastelands. A mobile base, if you will, with movement and mechanisms that allows it to run on magic. So our protagonist and many others travel in their Gauntlet Runners to gather popularity. Let’s go ahead and board.

This is the Gauntlet Runner’s War Room. If you access the roundabout, you’ll be able to enter the Gauntlet Runner’s War Room. If you access the roundtable here, all your allies gather back from town and a map of your journey opens.

Most RPGs don’t have a time limit on the adventure, but Metaphor revolves around the concept of dates and time. For people today, travel often has a fixed itinerary, such as three days and two nights. So in this game, we’ve captured the travel experience with predetermined lengths of activities and structure. But within that, what you do, where you go, is up to each player who can choose to do things differently. You’re free to spend your time as you please.

Here we have the list of quests I’ve accepted. You have a set time frame to complete the main story objective at each location you visit. But these side quests play an important role in the story, too. Some require fighting strong enemies, while others may offer rare equipment. The order in which you take on these quests will have a great impact on how difficult the battles feel, so which challenges you take on first will play a big factor in your experience.

Now let’s pick a destination and head out. OK, we have departed. In most games, you arrive at your destination instantly, but here you’re inside the runner, heading toward it. Imagine, for example, living in a camper with your travel companions, cooking, conversing, camping, and more. We want you to have a realistic traveling experience, so we designed the game to reflect that.

This is the kitchen. You can cook the ingredients you’ve gathered with your friends to make valuable items.

In the back is the common room. Looks like nobody’s here right now, but your allies will often visit you to spend time with them. There is also a collection of books for you to read. Or if you’d rather not do anything, you can sleep here. As you can see, we have Japanese-style capsule-shaped beds.

The Gauntlet Runner’s interior is quite spacious and even has its own engine room. Here’s a washing machine, and you’ll find cleaning supplies too.

I hope you’re excited to learn more about how they play into things. You’re not limited to staying inside the Gauntlet Runner. If you climb up the ladder to the deck, you can see it moving through this massive world. You can even see monsters soaring overhead. The Gauntlet Runner has so much to do as you head to your next stop that it’s impossible to tell you’d all hear, so please stay tuned.

Once you’ve prepared in the Runner or a city, you’ll arrive in a dungeon. Here’s an introduction to the combat system, which is critical to making progress.

■ Dungeons and Combat

User Interface

This is the entrance to a certain dungeon. Let’s check the main menu before we head in. Here we have features like items, skills, and equipment. You can see that the UI has always been one of our strong suits. It’s something that we were very particular about. You often spend a lot of time navigating menus in RPGs, so we wanted to give players a beautiful interface to enjoy a stronger sense of immersion.

Archetypes

Let’s check out the party customization screen. The key to strengthening a party in Metaphor lies in the job system, and the growth of these jobs is critical to advancing through the game. In Metaphor, the power of these jobs is called Archetypes. Archetypes are a very important element to this game, which I’ll give you a few more details on. By confronting their anxiety, the protagonists acquire these Archetypes, a special power. Think of them as heroic figures everyone possesses. Their powers manifest in various forms throughout the game.

Examples of some Archetypes that show up early in the game include the Seeker, who is an all-rounder in battle, the Mage, who strikes weaknesses with offensive magic, and the Thief, who can plunder resources. But the key point of the system here is that the character can undergo a transformation, taking on the appearance of various heroic figures and then use their skills to fight. Let’s enter the dungeon and take a look at what kind of combat is possible.

Battle: Fast and Squad

Once you enter the dungeon, use your Fairy Companion’s power to analyze your surroundings. This will give you a sort of ranking of nearby enemies. And by that, I mean how strong they are.

As you can see, many enemies are glowing blue, which indicates a lower rank, in other words, weaker enemies. One of the things we kept in mind during development was our goal to achieve this. What we kept in mind during development was our goal to make the game as fast-paced and exhilarating as possible. Tedious and slow-paced enemy encounters can ruin a game’s rhythm, especially if you know you can win against weaker enemies.

Now you’ll notice we have a large monster ahead. More dangerous enemies give off a yellow glow. If the analysis indicates they’re formidable, you should approach cautiously, unlike before. Pressing the Squad button will call your party members to your side, transitioning us smoothly into a turn-based battle.

If you initiate a squad battle before the enemy notices you, you earn a bonus first strike, just like this. Even for battles that require a squad approach to defeat them with skills, the action portion before it is designed to provide a texture element with mechanics that can lead to both advantages and disadvantages. The Squad option allows you to engage and enjoy tense, tactical battles without even drawing close and using a variety of skills and strategic actions. The party customization is highly flexible and strategic, so we encourage you to create your own unique and powerful party.

We have just annihilated the enemies. As you can see, you can earn bonus rewards by defeating all enemies without taking any damage. We implemented this feature to provide a sense of accomplishment in party customization, so I suggest you try it out. So that’s the exhilarating action elements and the strategic nature of the turn-based battles. It’s a battle that can be used to defeat all enemies in the turn-based battles. It’s a battle system with two aspects to enjoy, so we hope you have fun when the game comes out.

Dungeons

Next, I’d like to touch on the volume of dungeons. As you progress through the story, you’ll come across main dungeons, which you’ll tackle as part of the main story, and side dungeons, which you can explore as part of quests. Both types will, of course, plunge you into battle. In terms of the number of dungeons to challenge, it’s more than any previous title of ours. Furthermore, the dungeon mechanics we’ve designed were created to avoid impacting the balance and pacing, reducing anything that may bore you. The battle system in these dungeons is one of our strongest selling points, so we hope you enjoy it.

Bonding with Followers

As we created the game, one area we focused on was how spending time on the road impacted the growth of your party members. One of the systems that symbolize this is the follower system. The protagonist will meet and befriend various people over his journey. As he continues to deepen these bonds, these followers will become his strongest supporters. Seeing their way of life through these interactions, the protagonist senses the heroic image within them, giving him access to new archetypes in battle that awaken within him. It’s up to the player to decide which followers to prioritize interacting with. Finding strategies to gain advantage, both in dungeons and outside of them, is a unique aspect of this game. We hope you enjoy them.

Party Customization

There’s more to share about Archetypes, but we’ll save that for future announcements. I’ll just say for now that there’s a significant number of them in the game. Furthermore, your other party members can also equip any type of Archetype, giving you countless options in forming your party.

Take a look. I’ll show you on screen. Here’s a party consisting only of brawlers. Unique parties like this are fully possible, so we hope you get creative with it. Metaphor has been created with the goal of fusing the idea of a journey with interpersonal interactions, party growth, combat, and a taste of the storyline we’ve described today into a single game experience. So when the game releases, we hope you’ll experience these aspects to the fullest.

■ Outro

What did you think? That was only scratching the surface of the journey and the basics of the game system. There’s so much more we can’t wait to share. Metaphor is a massive game filled with interesting and unique elements.

As for the narrative, I only touched on the beginning of the story, but the surprising twists and turns we’re known for await you. I hope you’re looking forward to hearing more about the story and characters that make this game truly special.

In addition, starting in June, we’re hoping to give you hands-on demos in various events around the world. The entire development team is working hard to get the game ready for release, so please stay tuned.

I should also mention we’re opening pre-orders today, so don’t miss out. In addition to the standard edition, Metaphor is also available in a special physical Collector’s Edition. This year marks 35 years since ATLUS released its first game, and Metaphor serves as the 35th anniversary commemoration title for the ATLUS brand. It’s a celebration title, and we’re very excited to get this game into your hands, so we hope you check it out when it launches.

Before I sign off, I have a short video we prepared for those of you who stuck with us to the end. This is a scene from The Gauntlet Runner, which I spoke about earlier.

Please look forward to the all-new RPG from ATLUS, Metaphor. Thank you very much for your time today. Thanks for watching!