Earlier this year, there was a bit of a teaser where Atlus dropped hints at a new Shin Megami Tensei game coming to the Nintendo Switch. Finally, Atlus confirmed through a new trailer that Shin Megami Tensei V is coming, and it is coming exclusively to the Nintendo Switch.
The beginning of the stream that aired started off by showing a history of the Shin Megami Tensei games, from the early Famicom days to the more current Nintendo 3DS ones. After getting through the earlier games, the trailer for the new game started, showing off a bustling train station, full of people. That quickly cuts to a destroyed tunnel full of demon bodies, followed by a scene where a young couple stands amidst some city ruins. They are quickly surrounded by a pack of flying demons, who swarm them and appear to murder them, as one of the hands raises and blood spurts up. All of this is par for the course as far as the Shin Megami Tensei games go. What is interesting is that it is made with Unreal Engine 4; the game still looks like an SMT game but with Unreal Engine technology it could be a more fully fleshed out 3d experience.
For those unfamiliar with the series, it originally started on the Famicom in Japan in the 80s, and then continued on the Super Famicom in the 90s. The Megami Tensei series really took off in the early 2000s with the release of Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne on the PlayStation 2. Since then a number of games and offshoots have been released, and all generally deal with human struggles against demons, and generally focus on young protagonists. The Shin Megami Tensei games can be comparable to Pokemon games, where you are capturing and training demons to fight with, however there is typically a lot of dungeon crawling in the SMT games. Perhaps the most popular offshoot from the SMT series however is Persona, with Persona 5 having been released this year to critical acclaim. The Persona games however tend to focus on character development versus SMT games that are more plot focused.
The Shin Megami Tensei series has been around for quite some time, and remains very popular in Japan, but also has a strong following in the West. A new core SMT game coming exclusively to the Switch helps to build the system’s popularity, especially in Japan, and should be a welcome sign for fans of JRPGs all over the world. Not much is known about when to expect the game, and if it will be localized. However, the last few SMT games have come to the West so there is a good chance this will too. Are you a Shin Megami Tensei fan, or a Persona fan? Are you interested in picking this up? Let us know below what you think about this new Switch exclusive.
Source: Atlus
