Persona producer Kazuhisa Wada says Persona 1 and Persona 2 are games Atlus will “probably eventually” revisit, but no Persona 1 remake or Persona 2 remake has been announced.
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Wada’s latest comment gives old Persona remake hopes fresh life
Persona series producer Kazuhisa Wada has again put Persona 1 and Persona 2 in the remake conversation, this time while discussing preservation rather than answering a direct remake pitch. In an interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, as quoted by Push Square and Eurogamer, Wada said he thinks “a remaster or remake is some kind of cultural preservation,” adding that creators have a duty to keep older works from being lost and “still around in the modern day.” From that perspective, he said, “Persona 1 and 2 are something we’ll probably eventually do too.”
That is the concrete news. The equally important caveat is that Atlus has not announced a Persona 1 remake, a Persona 2 remake, or any Persona remaster project for those entries. Wada’s wording is aspirational and probabilistic, not a product reveal. There are no confirmed platforms, release windows, prices, editions, development leads, or screenshots for either game.
The reason the quote is travelling quickly is the pattern around it. This is not Wada’s first recent public comment suggesting Atlus sees the earliest Persona games as unfinished business. It arrives after Persona 3 Reload’s 2024 release, after Atlus confirmed Persona 4 Revival for next February according to Eurogamer and Push Square, and while multiple outlets, including Kotaku, Vice, and Shacknews, describe Persona 6 as in development. The smoke is real in the sense that Atlus leadership keeps talking about the idea. The fire, meaning a formal Atlus announcement, is still absent.
The confirmed position is interest, not a green light
The safest reading of Wada’s comments is that Atlus wants room to revisit the first two Persona eras, but is not ready to commit publicly. In an earlier GamerBraves interview covered by Kotaku, Vice, and Shacknews, Wada was asked about returning to Revelations: Persona and Persona 2: Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment. His answer, as quoted by those outlets, was: “At this point, I can’t say for sure, but personally, I think it’s something we should definitely do. I think we have to do it.”
That phrasing matters. “Personally” separates Wada’s preference from a corporate reveal. “I can’t say for sure” keeps the door open without confirming pre-production, full production, or even a chosen format. The newer Rock Paper Shotgun quote, relayed by Push Square and Eurogamer, changes the temperature but not the status. “Probably eventually” is warmer than silence, yet still sits below “now in development.”
For readers tracking Atlus Persona remakes, that distinction is useful because remake discourse tends to collapse every interview hint into an announcement-shaped rumor. Wada has supplied a rationale, cultural preservation, and a direction of travel, Persona 1 and Persona 2. Atlus has not supplied the details that would turn that into buying guidance or a release calendar.
Preservation is a stronger argument for Persona 1 and 2 than for most modern remakes
Wada’s preservation framing lands differently for Persona 1 and Persona 2 because these games occupy a strange place in the franchise’s availability and identity. Eurogamer notes that Persona 1 and Persona 2 are the only mainline Persona games that are not readily available to buy on any modern system. Kotaku adds that both have had re-releases, but those were PSP ports that are now roughly 15 years old. Persona 1, released in the West as Revelations: Persona, is also old enough that Kotaku described it as celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.
For a series that grew enormously through Persona 3, Persona 4, and Persona 5, that creates a practical gap. Newer players can understand the modern loop of school calendars, social bonds or links, part-time life management, and dungeon pressure through later entries and their reissues. They cannot as easily buy the first Persona and the Persona 2 duology on current storefronts, at least based on Eurogamer’s availability summary.
That is where “Persona remaster” and “Persona remake” stop being interchangeable fan wishes. A remaster could make the existing games easier to purchase and preserve their old structures with quality-of-life changes. A remake could rebuild them for an audience trained by Persona 3 Reload, Persona 4 Golden, and Persona 5 Royal. Wada has used both “remaster” and “remake” in the preservation discussion, according to Push Square and Eurogamer, so Atlus has not publicly indicated which kind of project it would prefer.
The design problem is bigger than updating portraits and menus
A Persona 1 remake or Persona 2 remake would not be a simple matter of applying the Persona 3 Reload template. Shacknews describes the first two Persona games as quite different from Persona 3, 4, and 5, noting that they are isometric RPGs and “quite tough to beat.” Eurogamer also frames Persona 3 as the entry that introduced the series’ more recognisable social and dating elements.
That leaves Atlus with a fundamental systems question if these projects happen: preserve the earlier structure, or retrofit the expectations that made later Persona mainstream? From an RPG progression standpoint, the earliest Persona games are valuable partly because they show the series before the modern daily-life formula hardened into identity. A faithful remaster would let players see those roots clearly. A full remake could make them more approachable, but it would also have to decide how much social simulation, pacing, combat readability, and party-building flexibility to add without rewriting the games into something they never were.
Persona 4 Revival offers one clue about Atlus’ current remake philosophy, but only a partial one. In the GamerBraves interview covered by Kotaku, Wada said Revival will be more cinematic than the 2008 original, with some static conversations newly rendered as in-game cutscenes. He also said, as quoted by Kotaku, that character personalities players were worried about “have not been removed or nerfed.” That suggests Atlus is thinking about presentation and modernization while speaking carefully about preserving core characterization. Whether that approach would survive contact with Persona 1 and Persona 2’s older mechanics is still unknown.
Persona 2 brings adaptation risks Atlus cannot ignore
Persona 2 is likely the sharper creative challenge. Eurogamer points to one reason Atlus may have started its remake run with Persona 3, saying that game did not include a major antagonist that might be difficult to depict the same way today, specifically describing Persona 2’s “rumour-fuelled Hitler reincarnation.” Shacknews similarly notes that the second game features Adolf Hitler as one of its major antagonists and says that has often been discussed in terms of whether Atlus would keep it intact or change it.
Those are outlet observations, not Atlus policy. Wada has not announced how a Persona 2 remake would handle that material because no such remake has been announced. Still, the issue shows why the word “preservation” carries weight. Preserving access to a game does not automatically answer how to present dated, controversial, or culturally specific content to a global audience decades later.
For lore-aware players, Persona 2’s place in the franchise is also awkward in a productive way. It is connected to the early identity of Persona before the later calendar-driven structure became dominant, and the duology format itself creates release strategy questions. Atlus could theoretically remake Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment together, separately, or as a staged project, but none of those paths has been confirmed by Atlus or described in Wada’s quoted comments.
Timing points to patience, especially with Persona 4 Revival and Persona 6 ahead
Anyone hoping for an imminent reveal should temper expectations. Push Square reports Persona 4 Revival is launching on 18th February, while Eurogamer says Persona 4 Revival is next in line after Persona 3 Reload. Kotaku, Vice, and Shacknews also frame Persona 6 as part of Atlus’ current future slate. Those known projects do not rule out earlier Persona work behind the scenes, but they do explain why Atlus may keep Persona 1 and Persona 2 talk at the level of interviews for now.
There is also a rumor layer that should remain separate from Wada’s confirmed quotes. Eurogamer notes that a prominent Sega leaker previously claimed Persona 1 and Persona 2 remakes were in the works, alongside a Persona 4 remake before that project was officially revealed. Eurogamer adds that it was not clear how substantially different those rumored remakes would be. That prior claim may make the new interview feel more suggestive, but it remains a leak claim, not confirmation.
The practical guidance is simple. Do not plan purchases, platform decisions, or subscription expectations around a Persona 1 remake or Persona 2 remake yet. Atlus has not announced release dates, target systems, upgrade paths, or whether these would be full remakes or remasters. What fans can reasonably take from Wada’s comments is that the idea has internal advocacy at a high level and that Atlus is publicly comfortable describing those older games as candidates for future preservation.
The real question is what kind of Persona history Atlus wants to sell
The renewed remake smoke around Persona 1 and Persona 2 is persuasive because it matches Atlus’ recent direction, but it also exposes a tension in the series’ modern identity. Persona 3 Reload could sell players a polished version of the formula that made the franchise recognizable. Persona 4 Revival can likely build on a beloved entry whose social structure remains familiar to the current audience. Persona 1 and Persona 2 would ask newer fans to meet Persona before it became the version of itself they know best.
That may be exactly why Wada keeps returning to preservation language. A Persona 1 remake or Persona 2 remake would be commercially useful if Atlus wants every mainline entry visible on modern platforms. It would also be curatorial, deciding how much of the old combat friction, dungeon structure, tone, and scenario material should remain intact. For a series built around identity, masks, and the friction between public and private selves, that is a fitting development problem.
For now, the story is neither “Atlus announces Persona 1 and 2 remakes” nor “nothing is happening.” The sourced version is narrower and more interesting: the Persona producer has twice recently said, through interviews covered by Rock Paper Shotgun, GamerBraves, Push Square, Eurogamer, Kotaku, Vice, and Shacknews, that revisiting Persona 1 and Persona 2 is something he personally thinks Atlus should do, probably eventually, as preservation. Until Atlus follows with a trailer, platforms, or a press release, that is renewed smoke, not a confirmed release.