Does Persona 5 Tactica Take Place After Strikers?

Games with subsequent sequels will usually try to release them in chronological order to make it easier for players to understand. Not Persona 5, though, since they just released their latest addition to the Persona 5 universe somewhere in between. With seven sequels to the main Persona 5 game, establishing a timeline can be difficult, but we’re here to simplify whether Persona 5 Tactica takes place after Strikers or somewhere in the middle.

Is Persona 5 Tactica Set After the Events of Persona 5 Strikers?

The short answer is no. Persona 5 Tactica is set before P5 Strikers, as P5 Strikers showed the end of the Phantom Thieves after their graduation. If Atlus Games had shown Persona 5 Tactica to take place after Strikers, it would disrupt the timeline and reduce the hype built up for Persona 6.

To deter this from happening and still have P5 Tactica canon in the universe, Atlus Games set the game somewhere in the middle of Persona 5 Royal’s second and third semesters. Since Persona 5 Strikers shows post-Royal events, it clearly means that the theory of Persona 5 taking place after Strikers is false.

However, it’s okay if you were confused since we can understand where that confusion stems from. Persona 5 Tactica was released after Strikers, making many think that that would be their chronological order. But as you can see, that is not the case with the Persona 5 universe.

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Where Does Persona 5 Tactica Fit in the Persona Universe?

Now, we hope that cleared the confusion of whether or not Persona 5 Tactica takes place after Strikers. The next question you might be thinking of is where Persona 5 Tactica fits into. It’s the last release in the Persona 5 series by release date but not chronologically, so that means it must fit in somewhere in the middle without disturbing the game’s main storyline.

The answer to that question lies in Persona 5 Royal. As Persona 5 Royal’s story extends the main game’s storyline by a year, Persona 5 Tactica takes place somewhere between the second and third semesters in P5 Royal’s storyline. All the events in the game occur before their graduation, meaning that they can’t take place after Strikers but after the plot of Persona Q2 and Persona 5 Dancing in Starlight.

This begs the question of how it does not disturb the timeline since some new characters and events do take place in the game. Well, that’s simple. Atlus Games created Persona 5 Tactica as more of a re-telling of events rather than an entirely different plot altogether. This means that the events that occurred in Persona 5 Tactica are the same as P5 Royal, just from a different perspective.

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Does Persona 5 Tactica Follow Persona 5 or Persona 5 Royal?

This is another point of bewilderment amongst fans as they debate whether the plot of P5 Tactica follows the main game’s storyline or the events of Persona 5 Royal. There are a few hints that have helped us to get to a conclusion on when exactly Persona 5 Tactica is placed according to the 11-month period in Persona 5 Royal.

Atsushi Nomura clarified Persona 5 Tactica's "placement" in the timeline in an Xbox Wire article. The game is supposedly a "retelling" of the original Persona 5. https://t.co/13fQ08ilT3 pic.twitter.com/XvTeu1hG4a

— Armenta ✝️ (@ArmentaDisco) November 9, 2023

The opening synopsis delivered by Morgana mentions the approaching graduation of the third year. This irrefutably tells us that rumours about Persona 5 Tactica taking place after Strikers are fabricated since Persona 5 Strikers takes place at their Tokyo reunion after they have all graduated. Another point in Morgana’s synopsis was about the weather, describing it as snowy and cold. This indicates that P5 Tactica is set somewhere between December and March.

Some fans may argue that the DLC for Persona 5 Tactica really throws off some of these theories since the DLC sees the appearance of Goro Akechi and Kasumi Yoshizawa. While we can’t confirm what storyline Persona 5 Tactica will be following exactly, we know that the game itself will be set somewhere in between this timeline.

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The Takeaway

People might have thought that Persona 5 Strikers was the last title before the launch of Persona 6, but Atlus Games really pulled a 360 and added Persona 5 Tactica before the previous titles. This allowed players to relive some happy memories with their favourites from the Phantom Thieves squad and prevented Persona 6 from being rushed.