First announced during the January 2017 Nintendo Switch reveal event, very little information of Atlus’s Shin Megami Tensei V has surfaced almost three years following its initial announcement. The last we heard from the project was the official confirmation of its title via a Japanese teaser released in October 2017 followed by a Western localisation announcement on November 29th the same year.
Since then developer and publisher Atlus has been deafeningly silent with regards to the state of the game’s development. With full development believed to have been started in early 2018, new information on the game has failed to appear in any way, shape or form in the 2 years since its most recent teaser, causing many in the Shin Megami Tensei fanbase to speculate and joke over the game’s possible cancellation, internal development struggles or possible appearances at future trade shows or Nintendo Direct presentations. This led Reddit user ‘u/someguy12121‘ to take it upon themselves to contact Atlus USA’s customer support, to which they received this response:
Was not expecting a response when I asked Atlus about SMT V. from Megaten
While it’s not much to go off for, this is noteworthy as the first official comment the publisher has made on the title in the almost 2 years since its localisation announcement. It also eases up some concerns that the title might be facing some difficulties with its development; however, it remains to be seen whether that is the case or not.
Shin Megami Tensei V seems to have played victim to having a premature announcement, with Atlus choosing to silence themselves with regards to updates on the game’s development rather than drip out any more premature updates as they tended to with their previous blockbuster JRPG Persona 5, which was initially slated for a Winter 2014 launch before being delayed until 2015 and again once more until it finally launched on September 15th, 2016 in Japan. Persona 5’s Western release date was also famously delayed from February 14th, 2017 to April 4th of the same year, so the team’s silence regarding Shin Megami Tensei V is likely to avoid making the same mistakes they did during Persona 5’s development.
Only time will tell when Shin Megami Tensei V will release, with the game’s Wikipedia page humorously stating it will release ‘one day’. Shin Megami Tensei V is currently in development for Nintendo Switch. The last entries in the series were 2016’s Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse and the spin-offs Persona 5 and Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux, a 3DS remaster of the 2009 DS title. An enhanced Nintendo Switch port of the Shin Megami Tensei and Fire Emblem crossover title Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE: Encore will release on January 17th, 2020.
