Persona 1 and Persona 2 Remakes Are "Probably" Inevitable, Producer Says

Persona 1 and Persona 2 remakes are likely to happen eventually, at least if the series' current creative leadership gets its way. Kazuhisa Wada, producer of Persona 4 Revival, has again addressed the prospect of revisiting Atlus' oldest Persona entries and connected the idea directly to game preservation.

Wada described remasters and remakes as a form of cultural preservation, arguing that creators have a responsibility to make sure their past work does not vanish as hardware generations move on. In that context, he said Persona and Persona 2 are games the team will "probably eventually" revisit.

It is not a formal announcement, and there is no timetable, platform list, development confirmation, or indication of which project would come first. Still, Wada's latest comments are more meaningful than a vague acknowledgement that fans want the games back. They present a clear creative rationale for why Atlus should bring the earlier titles forward: not simply because remakes can be commercially attractive, but because keeping major works playable and visible has value of its own.

Preservation is at the center of the conversation

The issue arrives during an especially anxious period for physical game ownership and long-term access. Sony has announced plans to stop producing discs for new PlayStation games from 2028, a shift that has heightened concerns about what happens when older software is no longer sold, supported, or easily playable on contemporary systems.

For useful background on this topic, read The Blood of Dawnwalker: Every Sanzhana Location and Why Finding All Five Matters.

Digital storefronts, subscription libraries, backward compatibility programs, emulation, archival efforts, remasters, and remakes can all help preserve games in different ways. None of those solutions is perfect or universal, however. Storefront licenses can expire, older devices can fail, regional releases may differ, and important games can remain stranded on hardware that becomes increasingly difficult to find.

For Wada, a remake or remaster is one possible answer to that problem. His view is that creators should make sure the things they have made are not lost and can still exist in the modern day. That philosophy helps explain why the Persona team has been willing to revisit past installments even while the franchise continues moving forward.

Persona 3 Reload, released in 2023, represented a major return to an older chapter through a comprehensive remake rather than a simple rerelease. Wada said the idea for Persona 4 Revival was already being considered when the team first conceived Persona 3 Reload, though it had to be put aside at the time. In other words, revisiting Persona history appears to have been part of the broader plan for some time rather than a response to a single release.

Persona 1 and Persona 2 would be much bigger challenges

Bringing the first two numbered Persona eras back would not necessarily be as straightforward as rebuilding Persona 3 or revisiting Persona 4. The oldest entries are markedly different from the modern identity many players associate with the series: the school-year structure, social systems, stylish presentation, and day-to-day routines that became especially prominent in later games were not yet established in the same way.

The original Revelations: Persona, known simply as Persona in later releases, emerged from the larger Shin Megami Tensei lineage and carries more of that dungeon-focused RPG heritage. Its systems, pacing, visual design, and structure belong to a different period of Japanese role-playing games. A modern remake would therefore raise fundamental questions about how much Atlus should preserve and how much it should reinterpret.

Would a remake retain the original's distinct first-person dungeon exploration? Would it streamline its progression and encounter design for newer audiences? Could it adapt the game's atmosphere without flattening the unusual qualities that made it memorable? Those are creative decisions, not merely technical upgrades.

Persona 2 is more complicated still, because it is not one game. Its story is divided between Persona 2: Innocent Sin and Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, two connected releases that together form one of the most ambitious narratives in the franchise. Any modern return would need to determine whether the games should be remade individually, bundled together, rebuilt as a single larger project, or released in another format entirely.

That makes Wada's wording notable. Saying Persona 1 and 2 are projects Atlus will probably tackle eventually points toward more than one remake. It could mean a substantial undertaking involving the first game plus the two-part Persona 2 story, effectively a trilogy of older titles with very different needs from later Persona installments.

Fans have been waiting for a clearer signal

Wada has previously expressed personal support for remaking the early games, saying he believed it was something Atlus should do and, more strongly, something the team had to do. His new preservation-focused explanation gives those earlier remarks additional context.

Interest in the original games has not gone away, even as the series' audience has expanded dramatically through newer releases. Earlier this year, new merchandise connected to the oldest Persona titles generated attention among fans, in part because some wording around the promotion encouraged hopes that something more substantial might be coming. The result was a reminder that there is still considerable affection for the games that preceded the blockbuster popularity of later Persona entries.

That enthusiasm is also shaped by accessibility. The earliest Persona games are not as simple for a new player to encounter as the most recent releases. They have appeared across older PlayStation and handheld ecosystems, and their histories include regional differences and rereleases that can make the catalog feel fragmented. For players who entered through Persona 5, Persona 3 Reload, or a modern edition of Persona 4, the first two eras can feel like important but distant pieces of the franchise's past.

A thoughtfully handled remake could change that. It could introduce those stories to a wider audience while giving longtime fans an official and contemporary way to revisit them. Just as importantly, it could allow Atlus to preserve their themes, characters, music, and place in the series' development before changing hardware and distribution models make access even harder.

Atlus still has major priorities ahead

For now, there is every reason to expect Atlus' attention to remain on projects already in view. Persona 4 Revival is still a major upcoming undertaking, and Persona 6 also remains ahead for the studio. Wada's comments should not be read as an imminent reveal for Persona 1 or Persona 2.

There are also practical reasons for patience. The more distant a game is from current design conventions, the more difficult it can be to modernize responsibly. Atlus would need to balance familiar expectations from players who know modern Persona with the historical identity that makes the earlier games worth preserving in the first place. A remake that changes too little could leave newcomers struggling with dated structure; a remake that changes too much could risk losing the character of the originals.

Yet that tension is precisely why preservation-minded remakes can matter. The goal does not have to be to replace the original versions or declare them obsolete. A remake can serve as a new point of access, keeping a work in public conversation while ideally encouraging appreciation for the form in which it first existed.

Wada has not promised specific Persona 1 or Persona 2 projects, but he has made the direction of his thinking clear. In his view, the series' earliest chapters are not disposable relics to leave behind while Persona advances into new installments. They are works worth carrying into the present.

For fans of the original games, that is not the confirmation they have been waiting for. It is, however, a promising sign that the people guiding Persona see its history as something to protect rather than simply move past.