Atlus

Atlus Co., Ltd.
Type	Kabushiki gaisha Subsidiary
Founded	April 7, 1986
Headquarters	Setagaya, Tokyo
Key people	Akira Nomoto
Industry	Video Games
Products	Video Games
Employees	338 (April 2023)
Parent	Sega
Website	Atlus Co., Ltd.
Article on Wikipedia	Atlus

Atlus (株式会社アトラス, Atlus Corporation) is a Japanese video game developer, publisher and distributer. The company was founded on April 7th, 1986 as a development studio for other companies. One of their early successes was a partnership with Namco in 1987 to release Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei, a video game adaptation of the OVA of the same name, itself based on the series of novels of the same name. Atlus would also start self-publishing their own games with Puzzle Boy in 1989. Atlus also had an investment in the arcade industry, forming a working relationship with Sega in 1995 to distribute the Purikura brand of photo booths. Atlus would acquire several other companies through the 1990's, but would accrue debt that would lead to a financial deficit by 2000.

Toy company Takara would acquire Atlus in October of 2003, only to sell them to technology firm Index Holdings on October 30th, 2006. On August 30th, 2010, Index announced that it would fully fold Atlus into the Index brand and retire the name, officially killing off the original Atlus. This Index era lasted until 2013 when Index went bankrupt, and Sega would acquire the company on September 18th of that year. The company was folded into Sega Dream Corporation, which was promptly renamed to Index Corporation. In 2014, Sega split Index into two different entities. One would be the technology assets which were named Index Corporation, which were sold off to Sawada Holdings in 2015 and was officially renamed iXIT Corporation in 2016. The remaining assets and video game division of the old Index Corporation were renamed Atlus Co. Ltd. This new Atlus has been a subsidiary of Sega ever since, and have been responsible for developing the Megami Tensei, Persona, Etrian Odyssey, and Trauma Center series, as well as other games like Odin Sphere, Catherine, Dragon's Crown, and Metaphor: ReFantazio.

In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Tsubasa Oribe from the Fire Emblem and Shin Megami Tensei crossover title Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE appears as a spirit, which can be enhanced into her Carnage form.

Joker, the main protagonist of Persona 5, was announced as the first DLC newcomer, as part of Challenger Pack 1 in that case, for Ultimate at The Game Awards 2018. He was later added in, along with Mementos, multiple spirits, and multiple music tracks from the series on April 17th, 2019. Additionally, multiple Persona Mii Costumes were released at the same time, including Morgana and Teddie as Mii Fighter hats, and both the Protagonist from Persona 4 and the Protagonist from Persona 3 for the Mii Swordfighter. Sophia from Persona 5 Strikers appeared later as a gifted spirit on March 4th, 2021 if a player has a save of the game on their Nintendo Switch.

Much later in January 2024, a combined spirit from 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim was made available in the game.

Trivia

• Atlus is the second third-party company to be introduced to the Super Smash Bros. series as DLC, the first being Square Enix.
  • Despite being featured in Smash 4 as a developer of The Wonderful 101, PlatinumGames was not formally introduced as a third-party company with playable characters even with the last DLC of Smash 4 with Bayonetta. The reason might be because PlatinumGames doesn't own the Bayonetta IP, unlike how Atlus was originally an independent company who created, developed and published the Persona series years before being bought by Sega.