UPDATE! On Tuesday, June 28th, Persona 5’s Morgana and Persona 4’s Teddie ended Nintendo’s Mini Partner Direct with an announcement that, ahem, we didn’t see comiiiiing! Three iconic Persona games are coming to the Nintendo Switch: Persona 3 Portable, Persona 4 Golden, and Persona 5 Royal. This news comes just weeks after these games were announced for Xbox Game Pass.
Persona has awoken – three iconic Persona games are coming to Nintendo Switch! Save others from distorted desires by donning the mask of a Phantom Thief in the critically acclaimed, genre-defining story of Persona 5 Royal, with previously released downloadable content included. Plus, there’s an urban legend that your soulmate might appear if you stare into a Nintendo Switch system on a rainy night … in Persona 4 Golden. Unfamiliar stillness swallows the city, people turn into eerie coffins and otherworldly monsters called Shadows swarm in Persona 3 Portable, which also features alternate protagonist routes! All three games offer English and Japanese voice acting, full-HD graphics and are sold separately. Persona 5 Royal launches on Nintendo Switch on Oct. 21, and more information about Persona 4 Golden and Persona 3 Portable is coming soon. Get ready … the midnight hour approaches!
Before this announcement, the only Persona game on the Nintendo Switch was Persona 5 Strikers, a game that’s similar in playstyle to Dynasty Warriors. Persona 5’s main protagonist, Joker, was also invited to participate in Smash Bros., so it’s nice to see that his game is finally coming to the Switch (along with classics Persona 3 and Persona 4). This will be the first time any of the main series games have been on the Switch – or any Nintendo console, really, as they were generally released on PlayStation.
Persona 5 Royal will be available on Nintendo Switch the same day it gets released on Game Pass: October 21, 2022. There’s no release date for Persona 3 and Persona 4 yet. Our original story about the Game Pass announcement is below the tweet.
During the recent Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase in this year’s non-E3, the highly acclaimed JRPG game franchise, Persona, was announced for Xbox. Part dungeon crawler, part dating sim, and part bizarre, penis chariot Pokémon summoner (if you know, you know), Persona has become quite the gaming sensation throughout the years. While the games will also be available on Steam and PS5, this is the first time the series has been available on Xbox. Persona has primarily been a PlayStation exclusive, with a few exceptions (Persona 5 Strikers was available on the Nintendo Switch), so this news is an exciting development for Xbox users who have been wanting to check the series out.
Or, if you’re like me, you have multiple consoles and have been playing these games for years, and you’re just happy that they’re getting more press and more people will be able to play them.
The three Persona games coming to Xbox Game Pass
The games coming to Xbox Game Pass are Persona 3 Portable, Persona 4 Golden, and Persona 5 Royal. Here’s a quick synopsis of the three games:
- Persona 3 Portable: A teenager who was orphaned as a young child returns to the city of their childhood. Shortly after transferring to Gekkoukan High School, they’re attacked by Shadows/creatures that feed on the minds of their victims. The assault awakens their Persona, their only chance at defeating these creatures of the night. They soon discover that they share this special ability with other students at their new school. From them, they learn of the Dark Hour, a hidden time that exists between one day and the next. They join the Special Extracurricular Squad (SEES), and with their new friends, confronts this evil threat.
- Persona 4 Golden: A group of high school students deals with rumors of a TV channel (the Midnight Channel) dedicated to distorting and exaggerating the truth of who they are and their identities. A string of bizarre murders related to the TV channel begins shaking their once-peaceful town as people seen on TV at midnight are found dead, hanging on an antenna. The group explores the mysterious world inside the TV and works to save its victims from death while also having to face shadows of themselves. Only by looking past what’s on the screen, finding and evaluating the truth among a myriad of lies, can they hope to find the serial killer and save their town.
- Persona 5 Royal: A group of high school students create a vigilante group (the Phantom Thieves) to expose the crimes of corrupt adults but soon find themselves in the midst of a worldwide conspiracy and targeted by powerful individuals who would do anything to silence them. In Persona 5 Royal, as the Phantom Thieves begin to form, the protagonist will acquaint with more faces: Kasumi Yoshizawa, a newly enrolled first-year scholarship student in Shujin Academy and a talented gymnast; and Takuto Maruki, a school counselor hired to help the students after its revealed that one of the teachers was abusive. Like the previous Persona games, making things right requires dangerous, otherworldly battles that have the characters facing their feelings head-on.
All of these are the most updated versions of the games you can get, offering more content, new characters, and in P3P’s case, a female protagonist. Both P3P and P4G had been originally released on PlayStation handhelds (the PSP and Vita, respectively), and while you can get P4G on Steam, P3P has only ever been on the PSP. Even if I had these handhelds back in the day, I’m excited to play these two games on console.
Related: All Persona Games Ranked on The Escapist
When is the Xbox taking our hearts?
What’s nice about the Persona series is that you don’t have to play the previous games to get what’s going on. Each game is its own story with a new set of protagonists. That being said, playing the games in order will make it so you recognize game mechanics and little easter eggs here and there. Honestly, I recommend playing all three of these, but you can also check out the plot summaries and go with whichever one is more interesting to you. Either way, prepare for a whole lot of symbolism, self-reflection, stylish visuals, intense battles, after-school clubs, romance, and kick-ass soundtracks.
Persona 5 Royal will be available on Xbox Game Pass on October 21, 2022. P3P and P4G are scheduled to be released in 2023.
(featured image: Atlus/Shin Megami Tensei/Microsoft/Nintendo)
—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—
