Persona 5: The Phantom X had a hard time doing away with the series' iconic calendar system: 'It was very difficult to convince the team'

Persona is a series defined by its calendar system. Everything revolves around it: the school schedule, dungeon deadlines, and social events. So what happens when you try and stuff that core gameplay system-shaped peg into a gacha-shaped hole?

Well, you don't. Instead, you remove it. Persona 5: The Phantom X still retains some kind of calendar, but set dates have been swapped out for a far more vague "yesterday, today, tomorrow" system. It makes sense for a game that is constantly shifting and changing with story and character updates, but making that move wasn't an easy one.

"Initially it was very difficult to convince the team that we needed to get rid of the calendar system," Chief Producer Yohsuke Uda tells me. "When we created the game the most important thing we wanted to do was maintain that Persona 5 gameplay and game feel. But if we kept the calendar system from Persona 5, there might be differences in how each player played the game and some people might be on a different date. So it would be difficult to make sure everyone had the same experience."

Uda says that ditching that for a broader system was key to being able to "maintain that Persona 5 feel" and "to make sure that we didn't lose any Persona 5 experience in any way."

Of course, one of the downsides to a largely formless calendar is that it also strips The Phantom X of the changing seasons that we often see in the mainline Persona games. The way to get around that? Well, live service comes in handy here with seasonal events. "We'll be doing more seasonal events—for summer, for Christmas—that are aligned with the real life time or life calendar. And that's how we hope to make sure Persona 5 X keeps that Persona 5 feel."

It is surprising how well that system works, at least from what I played back when I reviewed the game. It's a nice way to bridge the gap between singleplayer JRPG Persona 5 and always-online gacha spin-off Persona 5.

The Phantom X is currently celebrating its half-anniversary—introducing Persona 5's very own Caroline and Justine as playable characters along with new story to play and a heap of goodies to celebrate six months.