Metaphor: ReFantazio is finally here and features the follower system that will look familiar to fans of the developer's Persona games. Followers are your social connections, characters you want to spend time with to get closer to them while unlocking benefits. Unlocking new followers opens a new archetype tree, with the more advanced archetypes having higher bond levels. Some of these followers will be part of the main story, while others can only be found through side quests.

There are eight ranks to unlock for each follower, which are easy to pursue once you reach the second level of bonding with your companion Gallica. This unlocks the Echoes of Followers ability, which allows you to open the menu by pressing the Y/Triangle button when you have free time and are not in a dungeon. This will show who is available to progress and who is not. If someone isn't making progress, talk to them to find out what's stopping you from making progress. The roadblocks could be that a certain royal virtue – your social values ​​- is not high enough, or that they need to be spoken to on the Gauntlet Runner while traveling to a destination.

Followers are listed roughly in the order in which they were unlocked. Any followers that are unlocked as part of the main story and are more or less unmissable will be marked as story-based with a minimal amount of spoilersbut there will still be some. Each slide also covers some useful skills you should focus on achieving.