Persona 3 Reload Won't Include the Original's Most Frustrating Mechanic

10 months 2 weeks ago

Persona 3 Reload players won't have to worry about the original game's most frustrating features as Atlus isn't including broken social links in the remake.

As reported by Noisy Pixel, director Takuya Yamaguchi told Famitsu the developers are removing the ability to break social links but will keep the potential to reverse them.

For those unfamiliar, social links are the connection the protagonist has with fellow party members, where hanging out in the social simulator side of Persona powers up their abilities in the dungeon crawling part.

Much like real life, saying something horrible to a friend, hanging out with someone else after making plans, or ignoring them for weeks on end would result in a falling out, and the social link would reverse or eventually break as a result.

"In [Persona 3 Reload], the Broken system has been removed," said Yamaguchi. "However, Reverse can still happen, though the conditions have been made severely less strict, so simply leaving a social link character alone will not cause it to Reverse, as it did in the original version."

Atlus removed the feature for Persona 4 and Persona 5, so while it may still be in the remake on some level, fans of the later games will seemingly find an experience closer to those.

It's not the only thing changing in the remake, as Persona 3 Reload also features a brand new English voice cast. The game was finally announced at the 2023 Xbox Games Showcase following a string of rumours and one final leak ahead of the event.

It will specifically recreate Persona 3, not Persona 3 FES or Persona 3 Portable, meaning there won't be a female protagonist or any of the other additional content those versions brought.

Unlike Persona 5 Tactica, which was announced alongside it, Persona 3 Reload won't be coming to Nintendo Switch, though rumours around that version have also begun after Play Asia listed the game and said it wasn't a mistake.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

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