Xbox Game Pass might be introducing another popular Atlus title to its ever-growing library of Japanese RPGs, with a newly surfaced rumor claiming that Soul Hackers 2 will be added to Microsoft's game subscription service in the near future. This claim comes from the same source who recently leaked the release date for Redfall weeks before Bethesda officially confirmed it.
Soul Hackers 2 was released in summer 2022 as an unexpected sequel to the 1997 JRPG Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers, itself part of the Shin Megami Tensei franchise. While it wasn't exactly the most critically acclaimed Atlus game in recent memory, a combination of a compelling narrative and the fact that Soul Hackers 2's combat was fairly close to Persona games still resulted in predominantly positive reviews. The JRPG launched on both PC and the last two console generations, which made it a great candidate for Xbox Game Pass from day one.
Microsoft and Atlus might be in agreement with that assessment, with Spanish YouTuber eXtas1s now claiming that Soul Hackers 2 will be coming to Xbox Game Pass "soon." This content creator hasn't been posting industry scoops for long, so the jury is still out on how credible his information is. That notwithstanding, the YouTuber's recent activity does indicate he has some level of insight into Microsoft studios. Apart from the aforementioned Redfall leak, eXtas1s previously narrowed the release window for Obsidian's RPG Avowed.
Xbox Game Pass added two of the best (J)RPGs ever made just last month when its gaming catalog expanded to include Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden. That development followed just months after Persona 5 Royal debuted on the platform. So, between Microsoft's steadily strengthening partnership with Atlus and the fact that the Xbox Game Pass library already offers a plethora of other acclaimed JRPGs such as Octopath Traveler and Chained Echoes, the addition of Soul Hackers 2 to the subscription service definitely seems to be in the realm of possibility.
But even if Soul Hackers 2 does end up on Xbox Game Pass, JRPG fans will certainly be hoping that Atlus has bigger news in store for 2023. Not least because the Japanese studio already confirmed that Persona 6 was in development back in mid-2021, but has yet to provide an update on the project's status. Given that state of affairs, it's still unlikely that the next mainline Persona game releases before 2024, at the earliest.