Compile Heart has opened an official teaser site for an untitled “school life RPG,” confirming that the project’s formal title and additional details will be unveiled on January 29. The announcement is light on traditional marketing beats—no platforms, release window, or gameplay breakdown have been shared—but heavy on pedigree, leaning on a veteran staff lineup to signal ambition.
In its announcement, Compile Heart says the project is being planned and produced by Kouji Okada, a Japanese RPG creator associated with early entries in Atlus’ Megami Tensei lineage and the first Persona. Okada is joined by scenario writer Tadashi Satomi and composer Tsukasa Masuko, while character design is credited to illustrator and animator Ilya Kuvshinov, known for his work on Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045. Compile Heart has framed the game as a new “school life RPG” built around Okada’s creative direction.
The teaser materials are intentionally opaque. In its press materials, the company describes a short video that flashes imagery of a DNA double helix, a mysterious facility, and an extreme close-up of someone’s eye—visual cues that suggest a science-tinged, unsettling mood rather than a straightforward campus drama. The teaser movie is available through the official site, and Compile Heart has indicated that updates will come through its official channels. Beyond that, no story synopsis, gameplay structure, or target platforms have been confirmed.
Compile Heart JRPG Teaser
Teaser-first rollouts have become common for Japanese RPG announcements, particularly for new IP. Publishers often launch a minimalist site and a short mood trailer well before screenshots or platform details, using the gap to build curiosity and focus attention on a single “full reveal” date.
Even with minimal hard details, the “school life RPG” label carries weight in the genre. School settings have long served as a flexible stage for coming-of-age drama, social systems, and supernatural mystery—an approach that reached a broad global audience through Persona’s blend of student routines and otherworldly conflict. Sega has said the Persona series has surpassed 27 million copies sold globally, underscoring how far that once niche premise has traveled beyond Japan and how receptive the broader RPG audience has been.
Compile Heart, a subsidiary of Idea Factory, is best known outside Japan for the Hyperdimension Neptunia series and other RPGs that often prioritize character hooks and stylized presentation over blockbuster scale. Pairing the studio’s sensibilities with a team associated with some of Atlus’ formative role-playing titles is an unusual combination, and it has prompted immediate interest from genre fans looking for new IP that still feels rooted in classic JRPG DNA.
The staffing list reinforces that lineage pitch. Reporting around the announcement has highlighted Satomi’s association with early Persona titles and Masuko’s work on early Shin Megami Tensei music, positioning the new project as a reunion of creators whose past work helped define a particular corner of Japanese role-playing. With Kuvshinov handling character design, Compile Heart also appears to be blending that legacy-oriented approach with a modern visual identity.
For now, it is too early to draw conclusions about how the game will play. Compile Heart has not said whether the project leans more toward turn-based combat, action systems, or a hybrid, and it has not indicated whether school life elements will function as a social simulation layer or simply as a narrative backdrop. What the studio has made clear is the timing: January 29 is being positioned as the point when the placeholder branding gives way to a proper title and a fuller explanation of what this “new school life RPG” actually is.
The broader business context may also help explain the strategy. Market researcher Newzoo estimates the global games market generated about $188.8 billion in consumer revenue in 2025, with a player base of roughly 3.6 billion people. In an environment where publishers balance high-budget blockbusters with mid-tier projects aimed at dedicated fandoms, a tightly framed JRPG built around recognizable creative leadership can be a rational bet—especially when the hook is less about photoreal spectacle and more about tone, writing, and music.
For now, the key takeaway is simple: Compile Heart has put a new school life RPG on the calendar, and it wants the audience to show up on January 29 for the real introduction. Until then, the safest reading is that the studio is presenting a concept-first project: a modern school setting, a deliberately unsettling teaser, and a staff lineup designed to signal pedigree. What that adds up to—console or PC, social simulation or pure dungeon crawling—remains unanswered.
News written by Mike.
