Atlus is a Japanese video game developer and publisher based in Tokyo, founded on April 7, 1986, and now a subsidiary of Sega. The studio is best known internationally for the Persona series and the wider Megami Tensei franchise, which together represent some of the most critically acclaimed Japanese RPGs ever made. Its corporate mascot is Jack Frost, the snowman-like demon from the Megami Tensei series who appears across dozens of the studio’s games. Persona 5 Royal alone has sold over 10 million copies across all versions, and Atlus’s recent output has positioned it as one of the most respected RPG studios in the world.
Atlus started as a contract developer for other publishers before releasing its first self-published game, Puzzle Boy for the Game Boy, in 1989. The Megami Tensei franchise began in 1987 through a partnership with Namco to adapt the Digital Devil Story novels into a game, and the series quickly became Atlus’s identity. Through the 1990s the studio expanded into arcade hardware and launched Print Club, a selfie photo booth concept developed with Sega in 1995 that became enormously successful across East Asia and is credited with laying the foundation for modern selfie culture.
Atlus’s corporate history is complicated. The original Atlus was merged into Index Corporation in October 2010, and the Atlus name continued as a brand within Index until Index filed for bankruptcy in June 2013. Sega won a bid to acquire Index for approximately ¥14 billion in September 2013. By April 2014, Sega had restructured the acquisition and officially renamed the company Atlus. The studio has operated as a Sega subsidiary ever since, with Sega handling global publishing while Atlus retains its development identity and internal studio structure.
The Megami Tensei franchise is Atlus’s oldest and deepest property, a series of dark, challenging RPGs built around demon negotiation, alignment systems, and post-apocalyptic settings. The mainline Shin Megami Tensei series established the gameplay template that every branch of the franchise builds on. Shin Megami Tensei V, released in November 2021 with an enhanced Vengeance edition in June 2024, has sold over two million copies worldwide and marked the franchise’s successful arrival on multiple platforms simultaneously for the first time.
Persona began as a spin-off from Shin Megami Tensei in 1996 and evolved into the series that made Atlus a global name. The turning point was Persona 3 in 2006, which added the Social Link system blending dungeon crawling with high school life simulation. Persona 4 deepened that formula, and Persona 5, released in Japan in 2016 and worldwide in 2017, became a cultural phenomenon. Persona 5 Royal, the enhanced version, has sold over 7.25 million copies, bringing combined Persona 5 sales past 10.45 million. The Persona 3 Reload remake released in February 2024 to critical acclaim, and Persona 4 Revival, a remake of Persona 4, was announced in June 2025 with a February 2027 release target for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S.
Everyone seems to love this series, but I have never played a Persona game. I wonder if I should fix that
Metaphor: ReFantazio released on October 11, 2024, developed by Studio Zero, an internal Atlus division formed by key Persona series staff including director Katsura Hashino and character designer Shigenori Soejima after they completed Persona 5. Rather than continuing the Persona formula, Metaphor built a new fantasy world with its own political structure and combat system. It sold over one million copies on its first day and surpassed two million worldwide by June 2025, earning widespread critical acclaim and establishing that Atlus could build a new franchise from scratch rather than relying entirely on its existing properties.