Settings and theme

Settings

Persona 5 takes place within the Persona universe, revolving around a group of high school students who harness Personas, physical manifestations of their inner psyche. Persona 5 is set in modern-day Tokyo, in April of the year "20XX" (2016), with navigable real-world locations within the city including Akihabara, Shinjuku and Shibuya. Alongside larger environments, there are specific locations that can be entered, such as shops, restaurants and movie theaters. A major setting throughout the game is Shujin Academy, a high school that the protagonist attends. The second major location is the "Metaverse", a supernatural realm consisting of the physical manifestation of humanity's subconscious desires. In the Metaverse, people with corrupted enough desires form their own unique "Palace", which is modeled after their distorted perception of a place in the real world, along with a Shadow version of themselves (their true self) possessing a "Treasure" symbolic of their desires. Returning from earlier entries is the Velvet Room, a place that exists for the growth of Persona users that shifts appearance depending on the current guest: in Persona 5, it takes the form of a prison.

The player character is a silent protagonist, a commonplace feature in other Persona games, codenamed Joker. He becomes the leader of a vigilante group known as the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, who change the hearts of criminals and other malevolent people through the Metaverse. He forms it together with school delinquent Ryuji Sakamoto, fashion model Ann Takamaki and Morgana, a mysterious cat-like creature. More people join the group throughout the game, including art prodigy Yusuke Kitagawa, student council president Makoto Niijima, hikikomori computer hacker Futaba Sakura, and cultured corporate heiress Haru Okumura. Also interacting with Joker are Goro Akechi, a high school detective; Sae Niijima, public prosecutor and Makoto's older sister; and the residents of the Velvet Room, Igor and his two assistants Caroline and Justine. Joker also has interactions with other confidants, including his caretaker and Futaba's adoptive father Sojiro Sakura, classmate Yuuki Mishima, his teacher and part-time maid Sadayo Kawakami, arcade gamer Shinya Oda, journalist Ichiko Ohya, fortune teller Chihaya Mifune, shogi player Hifumi Togo, doctor Tae Takemi, politician Toranosuke Yoshida, and model gun store owner Munehisa Iwai. 

Theme

Persona 5 was developed by P-Studio, an internal development studio within Atlus dedicated to handling the Persona series. Notable staff members, such as Katsura Hashino, Shigenori Soejima and Shoji Meguro returned.

Originally using the concept of a backpacking trip around the world as a framing device for the story, Hashino decided to refocus on Japan in the wake of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. More specifically, it has been noted that the Japanese government's actions in response to the earthquake and tsunami's fallout, along with Japanese citizens' reactions to how the government acted during that time, may have served as partial influences on the game's themes. Following that crisis and seeing how people were bonding in the face of it, Hashino decided to have the story take place solely in Japan, with the journeying being done through the ever-shifting Palaces. Ultimately, the story's central concepts were inspired by equivalent social changes he saw in modern society, particularly in Japan. Hashino also described the central theme of the game as being about freedom and how the characters attain it. He wanted to make the game more "thematically approachable" for newcomers to the series, and to be an emotional experience that left its audience with a strong sense of catharsis and the inspiration to take on problems in their lives.

The characters' initial Personas (Arsène, Captain Kidd, Carmen, Zorro, Goemon, Johanna, Necronomicon, Milady, Robin Hood) were themed after outlaws and picaresque heroes to reflect the function and dominant suppressed passions forming the Palace, and also represent aspects of their owners' personalities.

The use of adults as antagonists was a more overt expression of narrative elements previously explored in Persona 4. The relation to police activities was also carried over from Persona 4, but this time with the role of protagonists and antagonists reversed. Several writers have highlighted the parallels between the game's various antagonists and real incidents/figures in different sectors of Japanese society (e.g. political, corporate, academic), and how the game's story and characters serve as social commentary on life in Japan. The game's villains and protagonists were also constructed to be parallels of each other, both groups being misfits trying to shape a world they saw as unsatisfactory or corrupted. This was intended to create moral ambiguity about the Phantom Thieves' actions, causing the player to question their concept of justice and their mission as a whole. In addition, the way a vocal minority online could draw attention to and shift public opinion on events and scandals in the news was cited as an inspiration for the ambiguous nature of the Phantom Thieves' actions.