The Persona 3 remake isn’t aiming to be a definitive version

Atlus has revealed that Persona 3 Reload, announced at Sunday’s Xbox Showcase, will be a remake of the original 2007 Persona 3 release for PlayStation 2, and won’t include the content and options added in later versions Persona 3 FES and Persona 3 Portable.

That means it won’t include FES’ additional epilogue chapter, or Portable’s game-altering option to play as a female protagonist.

Producer Ryota Niitsuma told IGN that “since the basic concept of the Persona 3 remake was to remake the Persona 3, we don’t have the FES and Portable contents included. We wanted to really genuinely work on recreating the Persona 3 experience.”

Niitsuma added that “we have remade basically everything from scratch as for Persona 3 the original version. So we have newly recorded voices, we have new scenes and events. We also have both new and arranged music. […] We wanted to keep everything from the original version, but update everything to the modern day.” The aim is to make the game as modernized and as playable as Persona 5.

Atlus has released updated revisions of every recent game in the Persona series, including Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5 Royal, so it’s more than possible it’s keeping the add-ons back for a future upgraded version of Persona 3 Reload. Still, the omissions are odd, especially considering that the full-featured Persona 3 Portable was only very recently reissued on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, Steam, and Xbox.

Reviewing the reissue in January, Polygon’s Chelsea Stark called it an “aging classic”: “While the systems don’t hold up when stacked against the newer titles, I found its bleaker tone more endearing and lovable. It takes work to get to the end, but the complicated, messy, weird story is worth it.”

Persona 3 Reload is set for an “early 2024” release on Game Pass, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. There’s no word yet on PlayStation or Switch versions.