The protagonist (Japanese: 主人公, Hepburn: shujinkō) is a player-named character from Persona 3, a 2006 role-playing video game developed by Atlus. In the game, the protagonist is an orphan who transfers to Gekkoukan High School in Iwatodai City and discovers a phenomenon called the Dark Hour during which supernatural entities called Shadows roam freely. After awakening an ability called Persona, the protagonist joins their classmates in forming the Specialized Extracirricular Execution Squad (S.E.E.S.), dedicated to eliminating the Dark Hour and the threat of the Shadows. In the original release of Persona 3 as well as Persona 3 FES, the protagonist is male; for Persona 3 Portable, Atlus added the option to play as a female version of the character, to provide more options to returning play