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Persona is the past of the Warhammer 40,000 universe.
The gods of the Warhammer 40,000 universe are entities formed from the expressions, thoughts, and feelings of sentient life. All of the gods of the Persona franchise function in much the same way, but are much weaker since these are only lesser gods who represent the feelings of humanity instead of ones like Tzeench and Khorne who represent all sentient life in the universe, much like the Eldar pantheon. Thus, gods like Nyarlothotep, Chronos, Izanami, and the other gods of the games only preside over humanity.

The TV World, Tartarus and other bizarre worlds the franchise explores are all small parts or remnants of the Realm of Souls, what the Warp used to be before it was fully corrupted by the Ruinous Forces. The Realm of Souls was shaped by sentient life's collective thoughts and experiences, but, similar to the gods, these worlds are far smaller and only focused on humanity. This extends to the Shadows, which are shaped by humanity's feelings, but since they are not connected to the more monstrous chaos gods, they are more benign and, to a degree, less evil. Humanity, at this point, cannot comprehend or access the full immeasurable power of the Warp, thus it's scope can only be glimpsed in these limited worlds.

  • So this means that the Persona protagonists are reincarnations of the following: Minato/Makoto is the Emperor, Yu/Souji is Sanguinius while Joker/Akira/Ren is a more benevolent Horus.

Characters in the Persona series are modeled after real people that Atlus staff personally knows or cares about.
Anyone who enters Persona will sooner or later notice characters that seemed too realistic for a JRPG, as if their background story were partially or mostly made out of real people's biography exaggerated to JRPG proportions. The "this is a work of fiction..." disclaimer is not a coincidence, nor is it seemingly here just to abide to Japanese law or prevent "Hitler" from appearing in a Persona game again.
  • Each of the Persona protagonists past Persona 3 are probably based on some real person.
    • The Persona 3 protagonists would be based on two terminal illness patients who only had 1 year to live their fullest. One fell into depression after being told about it but nevertheless made it through with several acquaintances, the other managed to live to their fullest and content while still realizing that they have to pass away. The former is actually the male protagonist, the latter is the female protagonist.
    • The Persona 4 protagonist might be a city boy who got thrown into a rural town with virtually no urban support other than a mega department store that currently invaded into the local economy while their parents went overseas to work. He got used to the rural life after a year and got back home.
    • The Persona 5 protagonist might be based on a kid who got bullied and got arrested because he retaliated the bully by punching his face and the bully's family decided to sue him and he lucked out and the Japanese government gave him a one year probation order. He would be often assigned to clean the streets and pick up trash as "rehabilitation." He managed to end a year of probation and went back home.
    • It should also be noted that the school bully might be the motif for Shido, as he doesn't act any different from a real school bully, and "Changing Hearts" might be a metaphor for a street cleaner job because all of the people that the Phantom Thieves changed hearts are actually "becoming one with the distorted masses."
    • In Persona 5, there are characters that are named after infamous fraudsters, sex maniac athletes or even activists.
  • However, the most realistic people in the Persona world are probably Adachi from Persona 4 and Hikari from Persona Q2. It's hard to even believe that they aren't modeled after real people. Adachi is probably based on an angsty kid that had life go perfectly against them and grew to hate the world, while Hikari is likely based on someone who had gone through a lifetime of emotional traumas and became a self-withdrawing Hikkikomori as a result.

The musicians, singers and composers of the Persona OSTs are in-universe servants of the Velvet Room created by Philemon.
It's established right when P3 starts that its entire OST (and conversely, the OSTs of P4, P5 and possibly the PSP version of P1) exists in-universe. In that particular case, it exists as a part of the main character's music playlist. Nearly every Persona song with lyrics, especially the ones with Lotus Juice in them, have lyrics that are weirdly fitting for the situations the protagonists find themselves in, especially P3 and P5's songs. Lyn, the singer of the P5 OST, even shows up in-game in Royal, in the jazz club to sing No More What Ifs. Conclusion: Philemon created them specifically to make music that would fit the journeys of each of the protagonists. Reason? Probably to motivate them. A lot of Persona's OST is quite hype-inducing, after all.

There are two types of shadow selves: those with red eyes and those with yellow eyes. The eye colors refers to whether the shadow is the complete inner self (yellow) or a fragment of the inner self (red).
We have only ever seen red eyed shadows from characters that already have Personae, in particular the characters from Innocent Sin, as well as Metis, who is Aegis' discarded emotions. These are characters have have the persona ability, and the ability to change personae, but still have personal problems, so only part of their inner self fights along side them, while the remaining part forms an incomplete shadow. Shadow Maya and the Eternal Punishment shadows are not included, as they are direct manifestations of Nyarlathotep.

Shin Megami Tensei is an in-universe franchise.
And it's popular enough in the world of Persona that it affects the public's cognition of what various mythological figures look like, and causes the cognitive world's magic system to feature spells from the franchise such as Agidyne or Megidolaon. There are also things like Jack Frost merchandise throughout the series.

     Persona 6 WMGs 

The unused travel concept for Persona 5 will be Refitted for Sequel
The premise around traveling the world was an interesting one.
  • The MC could be a student on a year long study trip around the world.
  • You could meet the party members at different points of the world.
  • The player could stay at a certain location for a month, and the player will have until the day they depart to defeat the Shadow Boss.
  • The Velvet Room would be a flight cabin, with Igor as "the Captain" and his assistant as a flight attendant.
  • The Personas you collect vary on what part of the world you're at, being based on the mythologies or prominent religions of that country.
  • Your party's main Personas are based on mythical/legendary travelers, while the antagonists' Personas are based on enemies/obstacles faced by those travelers and/or mythical/legendary conquerors (since conquest can be seen as sort of the dark side of travel).

The Velvet Room Assistant's name
Keeping with the Frankenstein Theme Naming, if it's a male, his name will be Victor, and if it's a woman, her name will be Moritz.

The game will have a War Is Hell theme
The setting will be a world where Personas are known to the public, and a terrorist organization will be using them for their acts of destruction. The school will be a training academy for Persona Users. The game's color motif will be camouflage green.

Persona 6 will have Arthurian and Chivalric Romance motifs
The main protagonist's initial persona will either be King Arthur or Sir Lancelot, while the rest of the party members will have personas based on classic heroic figures. The main bosses will be draconic in appearance and theme, being dragons slain by knights (aka the player party).
  • The Big Bad could use Mordred as his Persona.
  • For Arcanas, King Arthur could be the Fool or Emperor, Queen Guinevere as either the Empress or the Lovers, Lancelot as the Chariot, Merlin as the Magician, and Mordred as the Devil.
  • One of the party members could be an intelligent horse as the Team Pet, similar to Koromaru in Persona 3. Its persona would be Cavall, Arthur's dog.

The game will have a horror theme
And it'll have classic monsters as the characters' Personas.

The new Persona game will be set in America

For a change, given that Shadows born from the collective unconscious manifest as all sorts of demons, deities, angels, etc. from all across the globe, and America is all but the smelting pot of all cultures and all ideas (despite some purists claiming the contrary), perhaps that would be an interesting change.

Persona 6 guesses and musings.
  • It will take place in a prison reform school as its main setting, to connect to part 6.
  • The main theme of the game will center around fantasy and escapism, with a focus on Arthurian legend and other escapist mythologies or fantasies)
  • As a way to differentiate itself from 5, the group this time will be full of anti-heroes who, while having sympathetic reasons for the crimes they were incarcerated for, are still guilty of the crimes and the reasons really serves as excuses.
  • The cognitive universe this time around will be differing adventure and fantasy versions of different locations.
  • The soundtrack will be electronic for the versatility of sound, to express the isolation and imprisonment of the incarcerated setting and a type of music to deliver exciting but not full on escapist sound for the cognitive universe setting.
  • The Velvet Room does not appear because it has been destroyed and Igor has been killed. The attendant for this game has amnesia like the protagonist, and asks the cast for help discovering who did it.
  • The protagonist is a amnesiac prisoner who woke up in the prison without knowing their true crimes, if they committed any at all and is infact Goro Akechi, who kept his Wild Card and somehow survived Shido's ship.
    • Or it could just be another blank slate, because it being Goro would be stupid.
  • The main antagonist, or at least The Dragon is Goro shadow which goes by Loki which was separated from the protagonist BY Nyarlathotep to mess up Philemon's plan.
  • There will be a green color motif this time. P3 used a blue motif, P4 a yellow one and P5 was red. It would be fitting if the next one rounds out the primary color spectrum with green.
  • A revelation from this game is the fact that the world was in fact, not reset from P2 but the one now inhabited is a cognitive versse forged by Philemon for humanity to inhabit. Nyarlathotep is trying to destroy the barrier between the dream world and hellishbdestroyed world he created in Innocent Sin.
  • Matthew Mercer will voice one of the main party again. Just for added flavor, he'd be the Star Arcana.
    • On the Japanese side, Tomokazu Sugita would also be in the same game, but now he'd be the Hermit Arcana.
  • The premise will be the unused travel theme for this game. The party stays in a certain location for a month, and they have until the day they leave for their next destination to kill the Shadow of the Month. The Personas you find vary on the country's religion and mythology.
  • It'll be a horror themed. The party's Personas will be famous fictional horror figures such as the Frankenstein Monster, Dracula, the Wolf Man, etc. The primary story theme will be facing your fears.
    • And the Ultimate Personas will be from the Cthulhu Mythos like Hastur, Yog-Sothoth, Shub-Niggurath, even Cthulhu himself. (Due to the Cosmic Horror Genre being unofficially the Spiritual Successor to Gothic Horror, which the original personas originate from.) With the Protagonist's being none other than Azathoth
      • If the Big Bad is Nyarlathotep, it would definitely be cathartic if he got defeated by his own pantheon.
  • A major theme of the next game will be how far you are willing to go for friendship and at what point you need to cut toxic people out of your lives. The betrayal will be your entire party, who turn out to have been villains all along and have been trying to corrupt you. At several points during their Social Links, you will be given the option to betray your morals in order to help them out; refusing to compromise breaks the Social Link, but puts you on the path to the good ending. For bonus points, you will recruit an investigator character named Something A—chi who appears suspicious; in reality, he is the only party member who is genuinely loyal to you.
    • That honestly sounds pretty antithetical to the theme of bonds in Persona. Especially since you would have to get the bad ending in order to max all your social links. That and being down to two party members would make the endgame section a lot harder than it needs to be.

For the direct sequel (in the incredibly likely case there is one), some antagonists will be Psycho Rangers themed after Arthurian Legend

The final boss of this game is the mind of the Holy Grail, after all. The idea is that pieces of Yaldabaoth will fall to Earth and find homes in the hearts of people driven to control others by any means necessary, awakening their Personas as various figures in Arthurian myth. They will be drawn to each other, publicly decide to share power with each other, and become their own, demented version of the Phantom Thieves, the samurai to their ninjas. They start attacking corrupt Palaces too, but rather than sneak in and burgle, they lay siege and plunder, with the ultimate goal being to turn their targets into their agents rather than reforming them. And as the trope suggests, each will be a dark mirror of one of the Thieves (their Ryuji counterpart will be a remorseless berserker Badass Biker, their Futaba equivalent blames her problems on the world, their Haru version is Daddy's Little Villain..)

  • Continuing Off of this, the antagonists' arcanas will be the reverse of the Phantom Thieves, and if any of their Personas progress from Initial to Ultimate, they will transform into representations of the agents of higher powers.
    • Reverse Fool:King Arthur> Metatron
    • Reverse Chariot: Lancelot> Erlang Sheng
    • Reverse Lovers: Morgana> Artemis
    • Reverse Magician: Merlin> Mars
    • Reverse Emperor: Percival> Kamu Tsukuyomi
    • Reverse Priestess: Caelia> Nanshe
    • Reverse Hermit: Nimue> Hephaestus
    • Reverse Empress: Guinevere> Marduk
    • Reverse Justice: Mordred> Freyr
      • Jossed, no Psycho Rangers.
      • Um, no it hasn't? I (the original theorist) specified the direct sequel to this game, which has not even been announced yet.
      • Oh whoops...read it wrong, my bad, this is my fault, sorry everyone, y'all have a good time now.
      • Shit this idea is so good it should be used as the primary antagonist for Persona 6.

The Persona 6 main antagonist will essentially be a Deconstruction of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, and if it goes by Arthurian Legend, their persona will be Morgan Le Fey.
While the Phantom Thieves are using their Heel–Face Brainwashing for good, let's think of how their ideology can be twisted and corrupted.

  • One can imagine that it doesn't take much of a stretch for someone to widen what they consider to be "evil" to be more willing to use that power on others. Look as Shadow Mishima, he arose from such thoughts.
  • The Cognitive Universe has the odd ability of generating money when Shadows are defeated. Imagine then, wouldn't someone rather kill Shadows all day rather than work a boring 9-5 job somewhere? It can provide a source of income, and one that an antagonist might be willing to preserve so long as they can make money for it. Financial security is in high regard after all.
  • There's also the idea that Heel–Face Brainwashing has one major flaw: you're essentially taking the choice of free will out of another's hands, and forcing them to change. While the Phantom Thieves do it to people who are so atrocious they need to have it done, it would be interesting to see how an antagonist who decides The Evils of Free Will is too much for humanity to handle decides to take things into their own hands.

As for why Morgan Le Fey? Let's make some analogies to why she's fitting as a Persona for this antagonist.

  • Morgan Le Fey translates to "Morgan the Fairy". Back in arturian times, the fae meant The Fair Folk, beings of inhuman beauty and yet inhuman standards. They went underneath full Blue-and-Orange Morality, deviating from what humans saw as normal. And there have been more than a few antagonists in Persona that fall under the trope.
  • Morgan Le Fey is also known as the Evil Sorceress codifier in Arthurian Mythos, causing the most problems for him such as taking away Excalibur's Scabbard which let him heal indefinitely, exposing Lancelot and Guinivere's affair, and mothering Mordred, her and Arthur's bastard child to take the throne from Arthur.
  • Morgan Le Fey has multiple characterizations, from sympathetic healer of Avalon to the Lady of Black Magic Femme Fatal, which befits how Persona seems to explore how some of the antagonists can have some good in them (Adachi being willing to atone, Akechi sacrificing himself so the PT can leave).
  • Finally, it gives a funny reference to the Phantom Thieves of Hearts. Morgan Le Fey has been subject to many different respellings, one of them being "Morrigan". This gives a connection to The Morrigan of Ulster of Celtic Mythology, who had one of her titles being "Queen of Phantoms".
The game will go for the original idea for persona 5
  • The original idea of backpacking around the world and its theme of self discovery can be revisited.

The protagonist will be female.

It'd be a nice change of pace, and the series that Persona is strongly influenced by, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, coincidentally has a female protagonist in the Sixth Part.

Persona 6 will involve superheroes
As a foil to the Phantom Thieves, you get supernatural powers, and immediately decide that the best way to use them is to live out your comic book fantasies.

Persona 6 will take place throughout Japan.
Given that Persona 5 took place in the heart of the country, what better way to exceed that game than to go explore more of Japan?

I know they did it for Persona 5 Scramble, but Persona 6 could allow more exploration for each of these cities, much like what they did for Tokyo in Persona 5.

The color of Persona 6 will be Green, to represent growth, healing, and disease
Face masks might also become a symbol in Persona 6. Persona 5's plot was revamped after an earthquake and the Japanese government's pathetic response to it so it'd be a fair shot to guess COVID-19 might influence Persona 6.
  • This◊ official art was released as part of the 25th anniversary celebrations. It shows the protagonists of previous games splattered with paint in the colors of those games, with some green paint sitting conspicuously in the corner.

There will be a theme about racial identity
I’d imagine Atlus might take a shot at the idea of ethnicity/race. There’s plenty race issues everywhere in the world, and what better place to base that kind of plot than the United States?

Asians (Specifically the Japanese in World War 2) or African-Americans and both's relationships with white Americans might be the focus. The Japanese would be more familiar to injustices done to their own for one. And blacks having more tangible current history in the US fit for an Urban Fantasy as well (As opposed to Native Americans who are unfortunately nearly extinct by comparison, and Mexicans who have their own neighboring countries albeit also facing racial injustices. Though they would undoubtedly be included if Atlus is already going this route). Bunch of research would be required and might alienate their JP playerbase tho so it might be a no go. If done right and we'll it could be among the best narrative games of the 2020's.

American and Native American mythology will be incorporated
Dumb shit like Bloody Mary, or the Jersey Devil and Wendigos. Even figures like George Washington, Harriet Tubman, or Uncle Sam.
  • Doubtful on the latter. I know they did it with Captain Kidd and Goemon, but I highly doubt they would go THAT far.

Persona 6 will be themed after Toku
In order to come off the bombastic Phantom Thieves, Persona 6 will be themed after Toku shows and tropes. There is already the Featherman series with the Persona universe but Persona 6 does not have to take up the Sentai aesthetic. The Persona users’ outfits would be based upon series like Kamen Rider, Metal Heroes, or Ultra Series. Their Personas will be based upon public property characters but all have a Toku design to them.

Persona 6 will have a white Color Motif
The teaser image◊ for the 25th anniversary has the colors of all the past games and white.'' It is also accompanied by this image◊ of all the protagonists, furthering the connection to all past games.

The requisite traitor is going to be of the Hanged Man Arcana.
The Tarocco Bolognese tarot deck labels the 12th trump as Traditore, or Traitor. Kind of speaks for itself.

Persona 6 will allow the player to choose between two protagonists, like in Persona 3 Portable...
...But this time, instead of them being Schrödinger's Player Characters, it will turn out that both will have their campaigns happening simultaneously, each of them with their own roster of party members and enemies. Only by playing both campaigns, the player will get the full picture of Persona 6's story (like the SEBEC Route and the Snow Queen Route in Persona 1).

The mascot character will be some kind of the following
  • A Monkey
  • A Bird
  • A Hamster
  • A Dog (albeit an anthropomorphic dog along the lines of Teddie and Morgana rather than an actual dog like Koromaru.)
  • A Weasel/Ferret.

If the "road trip" idea is used, the party personas will be based on Norse Mythology, especially if there is a theme of fighting your fears

Igor will finally be replaced
His successor will be named "Vladimir," and starting from Persona 6, the Velvet Room assistants will be named after Dracula characters.

The Persona 6 protagonist will have been a legitimate delinquent.

This is just one possible way that the protagonist could be different from Joker. While Joker was falsely accused of assault by a corrupt politician, the protagonist will have actually committed a crime in the past and was punished for it. By the time the story starts, he’ll have come to regret it and try to be a better person, moving to the game’s main location for a fresh start.

Party Member Speculation
Feel free to add your own suggestions.

  • A Childhood Friend of the protagonist: They’ve first met each other when they were kids (at least 10 years prior to the story), but the friend ended up moving away. They never saw each other again until the protagonist happened to move to the same place as his old friend. Perhaps the friend could even be a romance option for the protagonist.
  • A Token Adult: While the main characters are just about always teenagers, the Persona series is not averse to showing adults with Personas, even having a mostly adult cast in Eternal Punishment and having Zenkichi join the Phantom Thieves in Strikers. So maybe they could have an adult party member in P6? They could be anything from a college student (so that they could be a few years older than the protagonist while still being considered young) to the protagonist’s homeroom teacher or even their caretaker.
  • A Team Pet: Persona 3 has shown that animals can use Personas, yet so far we’ve only had Koromaru. Maybe the developers can revisit the concept, as unlikely as it seems.

    Potential Future Personas 

Inspired by this video.

  • Vlad the Impaler
  • Frankenstein (both the monster and the doctor himself)
  • Johnny Appleseed - Earth-elemental and healing-based
  • Paul Bunyan - Physical-oriented
    • Babe the Blue Ox
  • Br'er Rabbit
  • Anansi
  • Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
  • Beowulf
  • Ned Kelly - In my opinion
  • Gatsby- Hanged Man Arcana
  • Jack the Ripper - Likely of the Moon Arcana, representing the mystery surrounding the serial killer’s identity. Specializes in physical and/or curse skills. Would look like a tall man in a black trenchcoat and top hat wearing a mask and holding a large knife. Bonus points if the mask in some way resembled Jack Frost’s face.

Alternative Title(s): Shin Megami Tensei Persona

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