While the world waits for more news of what Atlus has planned for Persona’s 25th anniversary, the publisher has instead announced Soul Hackers 2, a game that is not Persona 6 but still pretty damn cool.
A welcome surprise in its own right, Soul Hackers 2 is a sequel to 1997’s Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers, one of the more obscure Shin Megami Tensei spinoffs. Originally released for the Sega Saturn in Japan, the game merged the demon recruiting of its parent series with a ‘90s cyberpunk story about Paradigm X, a Matrix-like digital world that was covertly used to steal the souls of users.
The sequel doubles down on the tech-fueled occult-Matrix idea of the original, with a team of Devil Summoners working to avert an apocalypse that spans both the real and digital worlds, using the power of demons to help them. Like most Shin Megami Tensei spinoffs, this will likely involve collecting loads of demons as well as dungeon crawling, and perhaps more than a little nostalgia for fans of unloved Sega Saturn JRPGs.
PSA for those interested in playing the first game: The only English-language release of Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers came via an enhanced 3DS port that you can still purchase from the Nintendo eShop — but only before it closes next year.
Soul Hackers 2 is coming to PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X on August 26, 2022.
