 The Phantom Thieves have struck again. This time, they seem to have targeted developer Atlas itself, having leaked the release date for Persona 5 Scramble in the US. A trailer featuring full English voice acting was posted on the official Atlas YouTube channel yesterday, before hastily being taken down ten minutes later. The damage was already done. Now fans know both that the game will release on the 23rd of February 2021, and that, in addition to releasing on PS4 and Switch, it will also come to Steam. This is a pretty big deal for PC fans of the Persona games. Up until this point, Atlas has never released a game on console and PC at the same time. So why is Persona 5 Scramble coming to Steam so soon? Well, in a word, money. Earlier this year, while Persona 4 Golden was released on Steam, we covered how Atlas has always been very hesitant about bringing their games to PC. Publisher Sega, on the other hand, is very eager to get Atlas games on Steam, and has been pushing for this for years. When Catherine was released on Steam and performed fairly well, Sega Vice President of Publishing, John Clark, said, Everyone's really pleased with it. We're pleased with it. It's performed well, and the audience is happy. I think for us it was always step one. Let's launch Catherine, which then gives the IP owners and business owners at Atlas, who are in their first 4A into the PC market, the ability to evaluate the success and how that can fit in for their future roadmap. Catherine's success led to the eventual release of Persona 4 on Steam, but whatever Sega and Atlas might have been expecting, the two companies were wholly unprepared for just how popular the game was among PC players. Soon after the game's release, Sega representatives said in a Q&A, Because of the game's critical acclaim and its low selling price, sales were much stronger than expected. We will continue to actively promote porting previously released titles to Steam and new platforms. We are also negotiating with platform holders for new games in the future, and we're considering ways to sell under favourable conditions for each title. Among them are measures such as preparing PC versions of the titles from the beginning, with multi-platform releases in mind. Sega has been far more publicly enthusiastic about releasing Atlas games on Steam than Atlas itself, and considering the year that Sega's been having, it's not hard to see why. 2020 has been a tough time for Sega. While in the west, the company is primarily known for video games, much of the company's revenue comes from arcades and gambling machines, which remain very popular in Japan. Or at least, they were popular. It turns out that nobody wants to visit casinos during a pandemic. Hit by what the company describes as, quote, extraordinary losses, Sega made the decision to sell off the majority of its amusement business to a rival company, Gender, in a move that leaves Sega a shell of its former self. This being the case, it's no surprise that Sega has been pushing for an easy win, and the western release of Persona 5 Scramble might just be what the company needs. In an investor meeting shortly after the sale, a Sega representative said, We haven't been proactive in releasing Atlas games on Steam so far, however the response to the straight port of Persona 5 Golden on PC was far and beyond what we expected. Therefore, we'd like to continue releasing games from Atlas's catalogue to various platforms, some of which will be straight ports, some of which will be remasters or remakes. So, with Persona 4 performing so well on PC, it seems that Persona 5 Scramble's arrival on Steam was an inevitability, but it won't be the last Atlas title to make the jump. We may also soon be seeing fresh remasters of classic games also appearing on PC and other platforms. After all, 2021 is the 25th anniversary of the Persona series, and Atlas wants to commemorate the event by doing something very special. According to Persona producer, Kazuhiza Wada, as next year is the 25th anniversary of Persona series, we have many exciting plans which we hope you will all enjoy. Please continue to support the Persona series. So from the sounds of it, Persona 5 Scramble coming to the west is just the beginning. 2020 might not have been a great year for Sega, but it sounds like 2021 is going to be a fantastic year for Persona fans.