John Hardin has commented on the possibility of adding Japanese audio to the English version of the upcoming Persona 5.
The press relations manager for Atlus USA and Sega of America first stated that fans should tempered their expectations as they are “throwing everything” at the English dub. With that said, he is currently looking at whether or not the Japanese voices can be added via a DLC pack although he admitted that this will be a “monumentally massive task.” For now, fans should only expect English voices at launch. You can check out his full comments on Twitter below:
RE: P5 japanese audio in NA, temper expectations. We’re throwing everything into English dub, and game will 100% be in English. (1/2)
— John Hardin @ 2015 (@JohnLHardin) June 7, 2016
I’m asking if the Japanese VO DLC/addon route is even viable, and that’s a monumentally massive task. I hope it can work out, but (2/3 oops)
— John Hardin @ 2015 (@JohnLHardin) June 7, 2016
right now, all we can confirm and that you should expect at launch is English dub. (3/3)
— John Hardin @ 2015 (@JohnLHardin) June 7, 2016
The previous games in the series, including Persona 3 and Persona 4, did not support the dual language option (English and Japanese) when released in the west.
Persona 5 is slated to come out later this year on the 15th of September in Japan and will be arriving approximately five months later on the 14th of February in 2017 for the North American region. The latest game from the Persona series is a cross-gen title as it is coming to both the PlayStation 4 in addition to the PlayStation 3.
If you are interested and haven’t done so already, you can preorder the various editions of Persona 5 on Amazon with this link.