Persona composer leaves Atlus to develop indie games

Shoji Meguro, the fantastic composer behind the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei series, has left Atlus to pursue a career in making indie games.

Meguro, who had been at Atlus since 1995, revealed he left the studio at the end of September (thanks, Gematsu). In a statement, the composer said, "I've been creating role-playing games by myself during my spare time for the past five years now, and I applied for a Round 1 Kodansha Game Creators Lab recruitment and was selected as one of the finalists. Then staff from Kodansha was assigned to work with me. I decided to leave Atlus and focus on my dream of developing indie games."

Publisher Kodansha launched its Game Creators Lab last year, offering up to 10 million yen a year to support developers through development, distribution, and promotion. Meguro says he'll be revealing his first game during Japan's Indie Live Expo on November 6, for which he also composed the music. He's already shared a small glimpse of the game on Twitter, and describes it as a "near-future sci-fi stealth-action JRPG."

It's not quite goodbye for Meguro and Atlus, however. "While focusing on my own indie game development, I will continue to work with Atlus on game music, so I hope those of you who were concerned about the sudden announcement will feel relieved," he said.

It's not clear what platform Meguro is developing his indie for yet, but hopefully, he's better at putting his work on PC than Atlus is—c'mon guys, you know we want Persona 5 on PC already.