Persona dev: When dev cycles run long, 'you start to question your instincts'

- Atlus artist and character designer Shigenori Soejima, speaking to Glixel about his experiences working on Persona 5.

If you sometimes feel like you lose your way when projects run long, you're not alone -- longtime Atlus dev Shigenori Soejima says he grapples with the same problem, even after over two decades in the industry.

Soejima was speaking to Glixel alongside fellow Atlus staffer Shoji Meguro about the pair's work on Persona 5, which was released worldwide last month.

The feature is kind of a fun read if you want to know more about how each contributed to the game's striking aesthetic (Meguro is credited as the audio director, Soejima as the character designer -- though he says he was more of a "jack of all trades" artist) and what sort of trouble they ran into when the project ran long.

"It was exhausting!" Soejima says at one point, noting that he much prefers shorter development cycles because "you can ride the momentum and the game hits the market quickly, you get instant feedback from the players."

The game was initially slated for a 2014 release on PlayStation 3, but after being delayed multiple times it wound up launching (in Japan) in 2016 on both PS3 and its successor, the PlayStation 4. 

"The longer it takes for the game to hit the market, you start to lose confidence in what's expected of you. You start to question your instincts and go back and forth on decisions," said Soejima, speaking about his experience of the delays. "It's harder to see the truth [when you're caught up in the project]. It takes more energy to pull through and stick to your original vision without being swayed. That was the hardest part."

You can read the rest of his comments about Persona 5's development, alongside input from Meguro about everything from why Atlus went with "acid jazz" for the soundtrack to whether or not he'd like to collaborate with Metallica, over on Glixel.