Persona and SMT Composer Shoji Meguro Leaves Atlus to go Freelance

Shoji Meguro, the composer who worked on the acclaimed soundtracks of many of Atlus’ games has confirmed that he will be leaving the comepany to become a freelance composer.

This was announced on Atlus’ official website, here is a translation of the text:

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Notice from Atlus Sound Team: Shoji Meguro to Become Independent
Thank you for your continued patronage of Atlus games.

We are pleased to announce that sound composer Shoji Meguro has resigned from Atlus and become an independent freelancer as of the end of September 2021.
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We are continuing to develop new titles together with Mr. Meguro after his independence. We will continue to support Mr. Meguro as he expands his activities and takes on new challenges.

We would like to thank all of our users and stakeholders for their continued support and patronage.

Shoji Meguro joined Atlus in 1995 and first begin working on the music for Persona 1. He would later go on to become a primary composer for Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, Catherine, and Persona 3, 4, and 5. If you’ve danced all night to ‘Rivers in The Desert’ or ‘Burn My Dread’ (or made inane screeches about rejecting gods), you’ve danced to one of his tracks.

From the sounds of the excerpt, Meguro will still be working with Atlus but on a freelance basis, so we will likely be hearing from him in some of their future titles

Meguro has also confirmed that he will be working on an Indie game with Kodansha Game Creator Lad, which he describes on Twitter as a sci-fi stealth-action RPG with Gun combat.

He also released on Twitter a message for fans about his departure:

Hello. I’m Shoji Meguro.

I know this is quite sudden, but I, Shoji Meguro, resigned from Atlus Co., Ltd. at the end of September 2021.

I’ve been creating role-playing games by myself during my spare time for the past five years now, and I applied for a Round 1 Kodansha Game Creators Lab recruitment and was selected as one of the finalists. Then staff from Kodansha was assigned to work with me.

I decided to leave Atlus and focus on my dream of developing indie games.

However, I will continue to maintain a good relationship with Atlus. While focusing on my own indie game development, I will continue to work with Atlus on game music, so I hope that those of you who were concerned about the sudden announcement will feel relieved.

Lastly, I would like to thank Atlus Co., Ltd. and my family for accompanying me. I would also like to thank Kodansha for giving me a chance to take on the challenge.

I hope you will enjoy the music of Shoji Meguro as well as the games I am currently working on.

We wish Shoji Meguro the best of luck with his future endeavors.