Persona 5's new game announcement gets a Royal welcome from fans

Persona 5 fans across the globe have had their hearts well and truly stolen today with the announcement that the game will be receiving a new, expanded version later this year. 

Persona 5 The Royal Game will be released in Japan on October 31 and will come to the rest of the world in 2020, bringing a wealth of new content for fans to check out. Focused on our heroes’ third high school semester (which runs from early January to mid-March), the expansion will introduce a new explorable location, Kichijoji, and both a new Phantom Thief and Confidant - Kasumi Yoshizawa and Takuto Maruki respectively. The artwork for Kasumi has already been released online, which you can see below.

The Japanese trailer below also reveals a host of new additions, including new Critical Hit and All Out Attack animations, a new location for you and the Thieves to hang out, and great animation to support the main story.

Looking through the trailer myself, it seems like there may also be new features added to the game’s original content; there’s a scene featuring a Kamoshida statue that I can’t recall from my last play-through, and the trailer showcases a cool zip-line feature that Joker uses to navigate a castle. Admittedly, they may have been there originally, but it’s great to think that there might some additional tweaks that refresh the older content given how many of us have played it several times by now.

With Joker having only recently joined the cast of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, this new announcement has given Persona fans another huge swell of excitement. It will be interesting to hear more about how the game will be released; the new version is apparently optimised PS4 Pro and I personally hope it gets a deluxe physical release. I’m also sure we’ll get hints and artwork over the coming months that suggest who the villains might be.

More importantly, I’m really keen to see whether this new expansion significantly adjusts the narrative. Will it rewrite the final weeks of the original game or simply add to them, and will we get new ending animations? And what does this new heroine mean for our hero's love interest?

What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter, and we’ll bring you more news as we get it.