Persona 3 Reload Day One DLC Revealed

Highlights

• Persona 3 Reload will have 7 pieces of paid DLC at launch with a combined value of approximately $30.
• Most fans likely won’t be pressured to spend money on the extra content, as the DLC will either be purely cosmetic in nature, or offer overpowered Personas that are equivalent to cheat codes which will completely break the game.

Atlus shared the complete list of Persona 3 Reload day-one DLC, revealing that the upcoming game will offer over half a dozen such pieces of paid downloadable content at launch. The developer’s announcement was accompanied by an image gallery depicting the contents of the newly confirmed DLC packs, all of which are throwbacks to past games in the Persona franchise.

Following a variety of leaks, Persona 3 Reload was at last officially announced at the June 2023 Xbox Games Showcase. While some fans were hoping that the long-rumored game would deliver the complete Persona 3 experience and thus serve as the ultimate version of the game, Atlus had different ideas. Namely, Reload will only be a remake of the original Persona 3, without touching on the content from Persona 3 Portable and FES.

At the same time, the upcoming RPG will also incorporate some new content, including seven pieces of day-one DLC which were just unveiled by Persona Channel, the series’ official Japan-language website. The combined value of the newly detailed DLCs will amount to the equivalent of $29. While that’s quite a bit of paid launch-day content for a single-player game, the good news is that all of the upcoming DLC is either purely cosmetic in nature or merely offers some bonus Personas. As such, most fans ostensibly won’t feel pressured to spend money on it.

All Persona 3 Reload Day-One DLC

• Persona 4 Persona Set
  • ~$3.99
  • Izanagi, Magatsu Izanagi, and Kaguya
• Persona 4 Golden Yasogami High School Costume Set
• Persona 5 Royal Phantom Thieves Costume Set
• Persona 5 Royal Shujin Academy High School Costume Set
• Persona 5 Royal Persona Set 1
  • ~$5.99
  • Arsene, Captain Kid, Carmen, Cendrillon, Goemon, Johanna, Milady, Robin Hood, Zoro,
• Persona 5 Royal Persona Set 2
  • ~$5.99
  • Anato, Astarte, Hecate, Kamusu Sanowo, Loki, Merikrius, Satanael, Seitentaisei, and Vanadies
• Persona 5 Royal Background Music Set
  • ~$3.99
  • Jaldabaoth, Last Surprise, Take Over, Throw Away Your Mask, and Victory

Granted, some might argue that the experience will be incomplete without the 21 bonus Personas Atlus intends to lock behind a paywall. And while Persona 3 Reload will clearly revolve around collecting the titular creatures, that argument is still dubious at best. For starters, all 179 Personas from Persona 3 should be making a return in Reload, so there will certainly be no shortage of them to fuse and use in combat.

Moreover, most—if not all—of the DLC Personas will likely be detrimental to the overall gameplay experience during one’s initial playthrough, at least if Persona 5 Royal is any indication. As a reminder, the bonus Personas in the latest mainline entry in the franchise were so overpowered that they completely broke the game until its very final stretch, even on the Merciless difficulty. It hence stands to reason that Persona 3 Reload players will want to avoid DLC Personas before beating the game at least once, unless they want to use them as paid cheat codes.

The game’s day-one DLC will also include a P5R BGM pack, although the $3.99 bundle will surprisingly lack Beneath the Mask, which many fans consider to be synonymous with the fifth mainline installment in the series. Persona 3 Reload releases February 2 for PC and consoles, and will also debut as a day-one Xbox Game Pass title.