In many games and stories, fantasy refers to worlds far removed from our modern architecture and noisy streets. And to truly appreciate fantasy adventures, you must immerse yourself in their make-believe, and ignore the fact that they are not real. But is that enough in this day and age, when so many other genres are dealing with moresocial and real issuesthat can actually be inspiring? It may be presumptuous to say, but maybe the fantasy genre needs to step up its game.
Most fantasy games these days make no mention of our real lives;Diablo 4,Tears of the Kingdom, not to mentionFinal Fantasy 16, all exist in variants of medieval-fantasy realms. Despite my occasionalnitpicking, I love what these games do, but I still feel that they would rather take us on journeys of illusion, denial, and escapism than give us some throughline to our present lives. Persona director Katsura Hashino seems to have picked up on that problem in his recentinterview, and is now looking to address it in his new upcoming high-fantasy game, Metaphor: ReFantazio.
“That was a fun momentary escape. now back to reality, where nothing has changed.”
As Hashino puts it, these feelings are inevitable when playing fantasy games or watching fantasy shows. But to him, the experience wouldn’t be rich or meaningful, even as entertainment, if people don’t feel encouraged or empoweredto do something with their livesafter playing the game.
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To that end, Hashino isn’t setting the game in a conventional, medieval fantasy setting, nor taking pages out ofsomeone else’s book or fantasy novel:“Fantasy does more than immerse us in empty worlds of fiction; it exists because there’s something about our world we want to change, and they help us reimagine something new.“Informed by these words he read in a novel, he’s designing a world that seeks to preserve a believable and meaningful essence in a fantasy setting.
Just look at Metaphor’sreveal trailer, which mashes a fantasy world directly into the sky of a 17th-centuryish town to create an outlandishly bizarre landscape. The game looks like it will integrate thePersona-style daily life elements as well, such as the calendar system and confidants. It feels like an expression of the studio’s core message, stated in the trailer, that the game will be “expressing how people should live their lives in the present.”
Indeed, Atlus games have been a powerful driving force in my life. I vividly remember howPersona 5mirrored my personal journey when I experienced the first death of a loved one–my grandmother–around the same time it was released. I found myself shuttling between cafes and bookstores, aimlessly wandering the streets, watching the days pass as profound sorrow completely erased my sense of purpose.
Incredibly, I discovered that I could replicate these idle and purposeless actions within the game while listening to the amazing “Beneath the Mask” and its rain-soaked rendition. The game’s imaginary–but awfully feasible–modern routine easily managed to seep between the cracks of my broken, lonely heart, and the noise of thoughts in my head began to subside alongside the music, if only slightly.
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At other times, I would just coop up in my room and do nothing but drown in my own mental block, then laugh at how Persona was once again anticipating my depression routine with Futaba locking herself in her room for pretty much the same reason. Ironically, the soundtrack of Futaba’s dungeon (a fictional mind tomb) was aptly titled “When My Mother Was There.”
I also reference the soundtracks in my backstory because of how Hashino says in the interview that Metaphor’s music aims to “replicate what characters are experiencing in their minds,” rather than just the atmosphere of the story. Now that I reflect on his words, most of the returning Atlus composer Shoji Meguro’s music feel designed to put you into a certain mood for prolonged periods of time, rather than capture a single scene.
Pick anything—be itPersona 3’s Mass Destruction,Persona 4’s Your Affection, or even some of the older ones like Digital Devil Saga’s Battle For Survival—and you will feel that steady and infinitly replayable tempo, rather than a definite start and end. In other words, even the music is designed with you and your thoughts in mind. It’s still about how the game works as a tool to aid you in your real life, or how it can be ametaphorfor the life you truly desire.
Of course, I don’t want every game to be a social sim, nor am I saying that we should get rid of medieval fantasy settings in games, but I love how Hashino makes games to mimic and intersect with inner everyday feelings, even if you take out all the demonic shenagines and talking thief cats. I hope that he preserves this essence in Metaphor’s beautiful and original fantasy setting, and I wish more fantasy developers would pay attention to this and make games that are more than just momentary-escape entertainment.
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