Atlus Reunites With PS1 Era Partner for New Game, Leaker Claims

Highlights

• Tose is reportedly providing development support for an upcoming Atlus game.
• It is unclear whether the title in question has already been announced.
• The Japanese studios have two confirmed PS1-era collaborations from the ’90s, but Tose’s policy of keeping a low profile means it might have contributed uncredited work to many more Atlus games over the years.

Atlus has partnered with Tose Software for one of its upcoming games, a prominent leaker has claimed. The two Japanese companies collaborated in the ’90s and have a pair of joint PS1-era projects to their names, both of which were published by Atlus.

Founded in 1979, Tose is a Kyoto-based game developer that has worked on over 1,000 projects over its 44-year history. While the company led the development of quite a few high-profile titles, including Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion and Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, it primarily acts as an outsourcing studio well-versed in a variety of genres that doesn’t normally take credit for projects. Tose is hence not a well-known name among gamers, even though it frequently collaborated with gaming giants like Nintendo and Sony, having consequently worked on many successful titles.

The list of Tose’s current projects includes an upcoming Atlus game for which it’s “providing development support,” Sega leaker Midori said on March 14. The insider did not elaborate on the matter, making it unclear whether the collaboration concerns an unannounced game or one of Atlus’s already unveiled titles. There are only two possibilities for the latter, Shin Megami Tensei 5: Vengeance and Metaphor: ReFantazio, which are scheduled to release on June 21 and in fall 2024, respectively. Given Tose’s pedigree for ports, and in light of the fact that both Metaphor and SMT 5: Vengeance are targeting multi-platform releases, either project could ostensibly benefit from the studio’s expertise.

Tose Once Made a Modern Persona Precursor

The official list of Atlus and Tose’s collaborations doesn’t offer much in the way of hints as to which project Midori could be referring to; the companies’ first known joint effort was the SMT spin-off Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers, a 1997 PS1 exclusive that they had co-developed. A year later, Tose worked with Red Entertainment on Thousand Arms, another PS1 title that combined JRPG mechanics with dating sim elements nearly a decade before that format was popularized by Persona 3.

Given Tose’s policy of keeping a relatively low profile as part of its white label development services, it is plausible that the company contributed uncredited work to even more Atlus games over the years. The scarce list of the duo’s confirmed PS1 collaborations thus isn’t suitable for speculating about their potential next project.

Atlus, for its part, is currently rumored to be planning at least three more Persona remakes and a remaster of a PS2-era SMT game. That’s also according to Midori, who recently suggested that all of those projects bar the mysterious remaster—which is speculated to be an HD edition of SMT: Digital Devil Saga or DDS 2—are presently in pre-production and hence unlikely to see the light of day for years. Persona 6, which Atlus already confirmed was in development in summer 2021, is expected to hit the market before the rumored remakes, and no later than 2026.