According to a recent report from Variety, Atlus’ renowned RPG series, Persona, may be making its way to Netflix as a live-action series. The production effort is set to involve 21 Laps, the team behind Stranger Things, alongside Story Kitchen, a company dedicated to adapting video games into films, which has previously worked on titles such as Sonic the Hedgehog and has upcoming projects like Tomb Raider, It Takes Two, and Vampire Survivors.
The series will be written and showrun by Christopher Monfette, known for his work on various projects within pop culture, including the upcoming Disney series VisionQuest featuring Marvel’s Vision, and Star Trek: Picard. Adding to the executive producer lineup is Sega’s Toru Nakahara, who has also worked on the Sonic film trilogy.
It’s surprising that it has taken this long for a live-action adaptation of Persona to come about. Persona 5 has been a massive commercial success, with over 10.46 million copies sold as of August 2025. Since its debut in 2016, it has been released across three console generations and has led to five spin-offs: Persona 5 Strikers, Persona 5 Tactica, Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, Persona 5: The Phantom X, and Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth. Highly successful games like these have also led to remakes of earlier titles, Persona 3 and Persona 4.
There have been numerous adaptations of the Persona franchise before: Persona 5 had its own animated series that aired from 2018 to 2019, Persona 4 was adapted in 2011, and there is also a miniseries for Persona 3. For those interested in the franchise’s origins, the broader Shin Megami Tensei series began as a trilogy of novels and has always embraced cross-media promotion.
This new live-action series, however, raises some skepticism. The predominantly American production team may face challenges in capturing the essence of Persona, which is deeply rooted in Japanese culture. It’s uncertain whether the cast will be Japanese or if the setting will be authentically Japanese as well. Transitioning this series – so closely tied to anime – into live-action will also necessitate careful handling of its tone. Or, as a humorous suggestion, they could always just cast Jack Black or someone from Parks and Recreation to make it more accessible.
On an exciting note, the recent announcement of Persona 6 at the Xbox Games Showcase has fans buzzing. Although the reveal lacked gameplay footage, images, or a release date, Atlus has confirmed that the game will be released eventually.
