Persona 5 Scramble: Phantom Strikers will launch in the West in February 2021, one year after its Japanese release, according to a trailer that publisher Atlus uploaded to YouTube and very quickly removed on Friday.
The hack-and-slash spinoff of the Japanese role-playing franchise was given a Feb. 23, 2021, launch date on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Windows PC. Gematsu preserved a copy of the trailer before it was removed.
Polygon has reached out to an Atlus representative for comment.
Persona 5 Strikers, as it is commonly called, is a crossover of the Persona canon with Dynasty Warriors. The game stars Joker, the protagonist of Persona 5 (who has crossed over to other titles since that game’s 2016 launch), and blends Dynasty Warriors’ button-mashing real-time combat with Persona’s turn-based battles. Players choose a team of three fighters to accompany Joker as they explore a storyline set six months after the events of Persona 5.
Persona 5 launched in 2016 and was followed in the West by the March 2020 launch of Persona 5 Royal, which added characters and tweaked the story to accompany them. Persona 5 Strikers’ launch in Japan in February 2020 was enough to get Western fans to consider import options, without language localization.
Update: In a tweet Friday afternoon linking to a teaser website for Persona 5 Strikers, Atlus subtly acknowledged the leak, saying, “Our communications have been intercepted by the Phantom Thieves,” and adding that “all will be revealed” on Dec. 8.
