Persona 5 Royal

Unreleased

Persona 5 Royal, alternatively known as P5R and called Persona 5: The Royal in Japan, is an enhanced port of Persona 5 to be released exclusively for the PlayStation 4. The game was initially teased by Atlus on December 30th, 2018. It was unveiled after the Persona 5 The Animation OVA, Dark Sun..., finished airing. It was released in Japan on October 31st, 2019.

There were no details behind the project, other than that the trailer serves as a teaser for more projects that are currently in development. Another new teaser trailer was released on March 23, 2019, after the second Persona 5 the Animation OVA, Stars and Ours, finished airing.

After the trailer featuring an unnamed girl with a ponytail was released on March 23, 2019, the next trailer was shown during the "Persona Super Live: P-Sound Street 2019: Welcome to No. Q Theater" event on April 24, 2019. The game was shown off and a release date was confirmed for October 31, 2019 in Japan, along with more information coming on May 9, 2019. Not too long after, a western release was confirmed for Spring 2020. On December 3, 2019, a trailer for Persona 5 Royal was released with a confirmed release date, as were the different editions that will be available on day one.

New Characters/Confidants

 * Kasumi Yoshizawa: An accomplished young gymnast who enrolled to the first semester of Shujin around the same time the protagonist does. Her sister died in a car crash a month prior to the protagonist's arrival. While she is friendly to the protagonist, she does not agree with the Phantom Thieves and refuses to join them because of doubt that their methods are dangerous.
 * Sumire Yoshizawa: It was later revealed that the "Kasumi" that the protagonist encounters is merely a result of cognitive manipulation overlaid on her less talented and introverted younger sister Sumire Yoshizawa, who seemingly attempted to commit suicide courtesy of an inferiority complex by letting herself be ran over by a car, only to have Kasumi sacrifice herself to protect her. Her parents recommend her to visit Takuto in order to cope with her survivor's guilt and she requested him to transform her into Kasumi.
 * Takuto Maruki: A part-time school counselor who enters Shujin Academy following Kamoshida's arrest. He can understand peoples' feelings and always helps them whenever needed. Unlike Kasumi, he views the Phantom Thieves very positively, as he believes they can bring justice and make people happy, despite him not liking their method. Takuto seems to dislike Principal Kobayakawa, as he suspects he doesn’t care about students and has his own agenda. Later on, it was revealed that a series of tragic events since the catatonic depression of his ex-girlfriend and the subsequent degeneration of his Persona courtesy of a miscalculation made by Yaldabaoth has driven him insane, causing him to become the main antagonist of the third semester and the instigator of the dream world.
 * José: A mysterious young puppet-like character who helps the Phantom Thieves in Mementos. Flowers and star stamps are collectable in Mementos, and the protagonist can trade these items with José: flowers are traded for items, and star stamps let him improve the rate at which rewards are given, such as experience, money and items in Mementos. He may also occasionally upgrade one of the party's accessories to unlock its true potential.

School Life

 * Sojiro will talk about a 15-year old girl that died in a traffic accident during the 4/10 Mental Shutdown-induced traffic jam.
 * Royal will be introducing the third school term events that don't appear in the original version. The third term events have occurrences that are considered to be strange and contradictory:
 * Morgana now takes the form of a young human male television celebrity.
 * Ryuji is now part of the track team and is very popular with underclassmen.
 * Shiho didn't transfer schools and is happily hanging out with Ann.
 * The real Sayuri is now in a museum, and Yusuke becomes famous for this. Yusuke has also made amends with Ichiryusai Madarame.
 * Sae is no longer a prosecutor and is currently unemployed. Instead, she helps Makoto in searching for a university campus for her. Makoto's father is also now alive.
 * Wakaba Isshiki is shown to be alive and well. Wakaba entrusted Sojiro to take care of Futaba while she works and she is currently living with them.
 * Kunikazu Okumura is also shown to be alive and no longer hostile to everyone. Instead, he is now a kind-hearted businessman with no interest in politics. He is now very clumsy, and Haru has to clean up his mess.
 * Because of these strange events, Akechi requests the protagonist's help in investigating the strange turn of events.
 * In order to play the Third Semester events, the Faith confidant must reach rank 5, Consultant rank 9 and Justice must reach rank 8. The remaining ranks for Consultant and Justice will advance automatically afterwards at certain intervals. Failure to raise these Confidants to their respective required ranks will result in the same end scenario as the vanilla version.
 * Seasons are added to the UI and text messages. For example, cherry blossoms can be seen on the Shujin Academy floor and the messaging app on April.
 * The in-game calendar displays rain and snow.
 * The in-game date now marks important dates, such as New Years and White Day.
 * Morgana will no longer pester the protagonist to sleep every night, allowing him to engage in more nighttime activities. He will still not allow the protagonist to go out during important dates such as before exams or after sending calling cards, however.
 * A new location added in Royal is Kichijoji: A popular spot in Tokyo that the protagonist can visit. With a mix of new and old, various cultures and personalities clash in this area that attracts men and women of all ages.
 * A collaboration with Darts Lives: Darts Live’s latest darts machine, DARTSLIVE3, will be fully reproduced in-game. The protagonist can invite friends after school to play darts. Playing darts with fellow Phantom Thieves will increase their Baton Pass Rank, granting better in-battle benefits, such as an increase to damage and better HP/SP recovery.
 * The protagonist can play pool. As well as increasing Social Stats, playing pool grants an increased rate of critical hits/downing an enemy.
 * The protagonist can invite his Confidant to an aquarium, a new Confidant hangout.
 * The protagonist can bring Caroline and Justine touring around Tokyo separate from their Confidant events.
 * Goro Akechi's Confidant is now leveled up by hanging out with him, instead of being automatic. Hanging out with him is required to play the third semester scenarios.
 * The protagonist is required to battle him alone in Mementos to advance it to rank 8.
 * His Confidant ability is Detective's Eyes in which the Phantom Thieves can scan the Shadows' weaknesses during the first attack.
 * The Phantom Thieves can take selfies and show them in messages.
 * Akechi's message color is now brown instead of gray.
 * The Valentine's Day event is now updated with additional content:
 * All maxed female Confidants who the protagonist didn't date will give him a chocolate they bought on Valentine's Day. This includes Sae, who the protagonist cannot enter a relationship with. The scene is exacly like when the girls find out the protagonist is cheating, but have different dialogue. Sojiro calls the protagonist to tell him all his female friends are here, who happily give their chocolate as a sign of friendship. After they leave, Sojiro gives him a chocolate as a thank you gift for helping him in LeBlanc. However, the protagonist only receive one chocolate if they find out he's cheating on them, before Sojiro gives him a pity chocolate gift;
 * Valentine's Day scenarios, including the instance where the protagonist cheats will now be fully voiced.
 * From the first time in Persona series. White Day events are added a day prior to the protagonist's departure from Tokyo. The protagonist can go on a date with any romantic partner here. If he doesn't have a romantic partner or after being exposed as cheating on the girls, he ends up hanging out with his male friends instead.

Phantom Life

 * A stronger type of Shadow called Kyouma will appear in Palaces; These Shadows will only make a move if the party attacks it and will have higher stats. They drop rare items and cause an explosion that damages nearby enemies once they are defeated. However, repelling their attacks or defeating them via Despair will cause them to be defeated normally instead.
 * Special items known as "Ishi" will appear throughout all Palaces. There are three of them which can be collected and traded to José in order for him to create a new accessory that allows the equipper to use moves related to that respective boss.
 * Some Personas that could only be obtained through fusion on the original game, alongside some new ones, will be appearing as Shadows in Palaces and Mementos. The new ones are as follows:
 * Biyarky
 * Hastur
 * Macabre
 * Mishaguji
 * Cait Sith
 * Tam Lin
 * Atavaka
 * Chimera
 * Fafnir
 * Loa
 * Maria
 * Vohu Manah
 * Thunderbird
 * Some areas will have new enemies.
 * The Phantom Thieves can use grappling hooks to reach higher places.
 * Futaba will have her own All-Out Attack.
 * Technical now downs enemies and facilitates Hold Ups.
 * Some Personas such as Kali, Lucifer or Satanael have their attributes altered or their movesets revamped. This applies to their Shadow counterparts as well.
 * The Phantom Thieves will have simultaneous attacks called "showtime," seemingly unlocked through story-gated cutscenes, which can attack Shadows together. This works even for enemies that cannot be downed, and is free like All-Out Attacks.
 * They are accessible if:
 * A party member obtains a Baton Pass;
 * A party member loses 50% of their health or lower;
 * An enemy is critically injured.
 * Akechi is shown in his Black Mask form as a playable character, with his true Persona being usable as well.
 * All behavior for major bosses will be altered from the base game.
 * Cognitive copies of Yuuki Mishima and Shiho Suzui will appear as a part of Shadow Kamoshida's Golden Medal Spike animation by lending him a volleyball. They can be killed in order to interrupt the attack and are weak to physical.
 * Madarame is now a significantly different boss; He will start in his portrait form with Artist's Grace and Restore instantly and once exposed will never return to portrait form, instead fighting with fire, ice, elec and wind-based copies of himself with crippling weaknesses against the opposite elements they represent, but repels the same typing as them. They also resist physical.
 * If his HP is extremely low, he will summon clones that start out with status conditions and sometimes at very low health.
 * Shadow Kaneshiro's phases are reversed; he summons Piggytron from the start which functions identically to its original incarnation. After defeating the Piggytron he must then be defeated on foot. His on foot version is heavily buffed in this game as he summons a pair of bodyguards resistant to all elements and can spam technical damage with sleep. Shadow Kaneshiro himself also resists physical and will perform a multi-hit attack while alone, although he can only use it once due to his gold vault running out of money after the attack.
 * The cognitive Sphinx will insult Futaba as usual, and Joker can choose to agree with it or disagree. Agreeing with it feeds in Futaba's depression and makes her less likely to restore the ballista, while disagreeing with it will let Futaba repel one of the Sphinx's attacks.
 * Okumura will now summon exactly 4 of each rank of his robots with a total of 8 waves of enemies instead of the former 6. After the first wave is defeated, he will summon a cognitive Haru which allows him to perform a debuff against the party, a buff to one of his robots and a self destruct order to another one at once. If any robot group are not defeated within two turns, he will replace them with identical robots at full health, forcing the party to restart the entire wave. the robots can also gang up at one party member on his command. After defeating the MDL-ED Execurobo, he will summon the cognitive Haru to self destruct after a turn, in which he reveals himself as vulnerable.
 * The second form of Shadow Sae will use the roulette to decide the affinities of her attacks. These attacks can be of any element. At low health, the roulette will automatically configure her attacks as almighty.
 * Shadow Shido's Samael forms will now have new unseen attacks as well as a reliance on heavy buffs such as Heat Riser and Tarukaja. Once he is on his last phase and is low on health, he will isolate the protagonist for the final battle to be one-on-one.
 * Yaldabaoth's sins now last for two turns instead of one turn.
 * Treasure Demons can now appear inside random Shadow guards.
 * Confusion ends after a turn and ends after the target is hit.
 * The Security Meter starts at 40% instead of 0%.
 * Baton Pass can now have different colors; At the final baton, move costs from that character will be reduced to 0.
 * A "Daily Assist Command" will be implemented during the daily-life sections of the game, with the intent of helping players navigate the options available to them on a daily basis.
 * Party members will receive a new stronger ultimate Persona, unlocked during the third term events.
 * Maruki's Palace appears alongside Mementos as the available dungeons for the Third Semester, with Takuto Maruki, Azathoth and Adam Kadmon acting as the final boss.
 * There is a new area in Mementos with a brighter, monochrome coloration, different to the areas seen in the base game. Enemies from the Mementos Depths and Qliphoth's World can be encountered there. After exploring it once, fixed groups of much stronger variants of past enemies will sometimes appear; These enemy groups cannot be negotiated with.
 * Mishima will also issue new sub-quests in Mementos during the Third Semester.

Other

 * Royal will have a gallery mode called "My Palace" where one can watch anime scenes (including the original version opening animation), listen to the soundtrack, view artwork, take control of any of the Phantom Thieves, check achievement progress, play a card mini-game and customize the palace.
 * The trophies in Royal will be slightly different than the base game's ones.
 * The western release of the game will come with both English and Japanese audio options, as well as multiple language text, whereas in the original version the dual audio setting was only available as DLC.
 * Merciless difficulty will be present in Royal from the start as well.
 * The protagonist can buy costumes in Harajuku, which can be worn in Palaces and Mementos, although legacy and crossover costumes still require DLC. The costumes are based on Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight.
 * There will be new character portraits.
 * All Phantom Thieves and several Confidants will receive both new midwinter casual clothes and school uniforms.
 * Akechi's confidant portrait changes at the Third Semester. Caroline and Justine's Confidant portrait will also become Lavenza's portrait after accessing the Qliphoth World.
 * The improved graphics are now based on Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight and Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight. The game runs in 60fps with 4K support for PlayStation 4 Pro.
 * Haru Okumura's existence is foreshadowed earlier in the game.
 * The Velvet Room can sometimes enter red alert mode and allow the party to fuse stronger Personas with a different move set than usual.
 * A mode akin to training quests from Shin Megami Tensei IV will appear in-game, allowing the party to battle various Personas in the compendium. Copies of the Persona 3 and Persona 4 protagonists will also be available as DLC boss fights using this mode. Their appearance is based on Persona Dancing spin-off games.
 * Lavenza will be present after the Day of Reckoning, into the events of the new semester. She, like Caroline and Justine, can be fought in Mementos in a New Game Plus playthrough.
 * Kaneshiro's voice has a higher pitch.
 * Kaneshiro and Chihaya Mifune's voice actors from Persona 5 The Animation will redo the voice lines due to the fact both of their previous Japanese voice actors passed away.
 * Some certain cutscenes will now be voiced. Yusuke arriving at Hawaii is one scene that was never originally voiced.
 * Lala Escargot is fully voiced.
 * A brand new bad ending and a true ending has been added, all of them related to the third semester.
 * The protagonist is given a mercy offer by Takuto to accept the dream world resulting from his excessive cognition manipulation powers as his reality; Should the protagonist accept, the time skips to February 3rd. However, not only is everyone at the cafe and the protagonist has no recollection on what's going on, everyone by him will all now be subject to Takuto's magic, where Morgana is a human and is dating Ann, Ryuji becomes well-revered by the Track Team, Ann and Shiho have fun together, Wakaba and Okumura are revived, Sumire Yoshizawa identified herself as Kasumi Yoshizawa and officially regained her sister's former glory, Yusuke has reconciled with Madarame and the protagonist has become friends with Akechi. Jumping forward to the 15th of March, Haru and Makoto graduate while the party celebrates as Takuto takes their photo while the protagonist recognizes something is not right. The credits display everyone fulfilling their wishes and a remix of Takuto's counseling theme playing in the background. The post credits display a snapshot of the party having fun at Leblanc with the protagonist and Akechi looking towards the camera, which burns outwards from the protagonist, Akechi and "Kasumi's" direction.
 * This ending can also be triggered on the day before Takuto is fought; when the protagonist is reminded by Takuto that Akechi is a fake made by him, he is offered by Akechi an option to express that he wants this Akechi to stay forever; Should he proceed, he will get the same ending as above.
 * Once the protagonist makes any decision to allow Takuto to make his reality the only reality during both instances, Akechi will ask him to confirm his choice. Should he confirm, the bad ending will play.
 * True Ending: After Takuto loses his powers, the events that happened courtesy of Azathoth's warping are reverted. Akechi is still missing, and the protagonist is at Juvenile Hall (as Akechi was not present to take his place) while all of his confidants, including those whom he maxed at the third semester will attempt to get him out of it. From here, the events of the true ending are similar to the original game, with some key differences. During the day the protagonist leaves LeBlanc, when he is picked up by his friends for a road trip back home, they find that they are being tailed by some men in black. Takuto arrives on the scene and offers Joker a ride to the train station while the others distract the people tailing them. Once he is in the train station, he refuses payment and tells the protagonist that he will be following in his example and will choose to live his life bravely, facing the good with the bad. The phantom thieves meet up with the protagonist again and say their goodbyes before going off to distract the men in black some more. At the station, he along with Morgana run into Sumire who vaguely warns him that he's being tailed and he should enter the train quickly. In the post-credits scene, the protagonist will see his Phantom Thief outfit as his reflection on the glass before it reverts to normal. If the Justice Confidant has been maxed out, the protagonist will see what appears to be Akechi outside the window as well.
 * If the party takes too much time to clear Maruki's Palace, he will end up in the counselor office of Shujin in prison garb during a dream, in which Takuto tells him to sleep for an eternity. The protagonist wakes up in LeBlanc with his room filled with cobwebs and his phone's battery long dead. Without motivation, he sleeps in his bed again with Lavenza in butterfly form failing to reach him.