Metaphor: ReFantazio developer explains why ATLUS games are hard
ATLUS knows that players find their RPGs difficult, but it's all part of their design philosophy.
ATLUS’ Persona series is known for its memorable characters but also for its brutally difficult combat. This was also the case with Metaphor: ReFantazio, the Persona-like RPG developed by ATLUS’ Studio Zero. During a speech at GDC, a battle designer on Metaphor acknowledged that ATLUS intentionally makes combat difficult, and explained why they do it.
During GDC 2025, Kenichi Goto, lead battle planner at ATLUS, hosted a panel in which he discussed the battle design in Metaphor: ReFantazio. During one segment, he addressed the notoriously difficult combat in his team’s games. Essentially, it boils down to ATLUS wanting players to engage with the game’s daily activities.
Source: SEGA
“On the internet, some players may call us sadists or even the devil,” he said, acknowledging the reputation that ATLUS RPGs have. On a slideshow, he wrote that “players need to find battles so difficult that they can’t be cleared without the rewards from daily activities—otherwise they’ll skip the other parts of the game.” He went on to say that it is the “death of the game” when players don’t have to think about what they’re doing.
Persona and Metaphor: ReFantazio both feature social events as integral parts of gameplay; players are rewarded for spending time with companions and doing jobs. If you ask us, these systems made for a worthwhile experience as we scored Metaphor: ReFantazio a coveted 10/10 in our review last year.
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