Persona 5 hasn’t even released in the U.S. yet, but the game’s director is already revealing content that was cut from the game’s final build on PS3 and PS4. Apparently some main character arcs, locations and Personas were left on the cutting room floor.
During Persona Stalker Club Episode V director Katsura Hashino and character designer Shigenori Soejima talked about unused content. The first topic was an entire main character arc for Hifumi Togo. Without delving too much into spoilers, Togo is a fellow student known for her beauty and athletic ability. She’s tied into the final game’s Social Link and Confidant systems, but she was originally planned to be a main character alongside the Phantom Thieves.
As for why the arc was cut, it was said that her inclusion made the final game too long. As it is, the Japanese version of Persona 5 takes about 80 hours to finish.
Beyond characters, significant plot adjustments were made too. Instead of the protagonist hanging out his friend’s parent’s coffee shop, apparently he was originally going to live in the same apartment as Sae Niijima, the independent prosecutor behind the Phantom Thieves case. No reasons for the change of heart were given, but footage of the half-finished living space was shown. This development could have made a huge difference in the direction of what little we know about the story.
Last but not least, a Persona 5 analysis wouldn’t be complete without talking about some Personas first. With any game in the series, there are dozens of Persona concepts that aren’t fit for release. One specific one that was revealed, however, ties to the protagonist. Instead of taking inspiration from the French thief Arsène, a previously proposed design revolved around the winged German demon, Mephistopheles. Because demons don’t fit too well with game’s vigilante motif, the idea was never used.
This discussion of scrapped Persona 5 concepts comes in lieu of concrete information about the game’s localized English release. So far we’ve posted a few spoilers regarding trophies, endings and character cameos, but we’ll let interested parties click the links if they want them. As a game that was in development for nearly a decade, a multitude of changes like these are to be expected.
Persona 5 comes to PS4 and PS3 on Feb. 14.
What do you think of these scrapped ideas? Are you looking forward to Persona 5? Tell us in the comments section!
- Gripping, twisty-turny story
- Collect all the waifus!
- Rapid-fire turn-based combat
- Infectious soundtrack
- Literally everything
- A cat making you go to bed when you're not tired
- Say goodbye to your actual life
