Persona 5 Royal will seek to address original’s homophobic scenes

Persona 5 Royal will seek to address some of the original game’s more controversial scenes, which painted a negative and hurtful picture of homosexuality. 

The original game featured two sections known as “Scruffy Romantic” and “Beefy Trendsetter” which had character Ryuji being preyed upon by two stereotypical gay men. 

One takes place on the streets of Shibuya, with both men describing how attractive they find Ryuji and even hint towards controversial topics such as sexual assault and abduction. 

It implies that homosexuals are nothing but perverts, a hurtful view we hoped the series would’ve grown out of in 2020. You can see an example of one scene for yourself below, which the localisation team hopes to address in the upcoming Persona 5 Royal. 

Atlus Communications Manager Ari Advincula told IGN that “We actually were able to go through some of the lines that players may not have received as well, look at that feedback, and then [update it] for the current generation.”

The publisher has said in Persona 5 Royal, both scenes have been edited to tone down the language of dialogue and intent behind it, although we’re unsure how heavily this will influence the overall result given how both men are presented visually. With any luck, it will have a major impact in the final release.

We had a chance to spend a couple of hours with Persona 5 Royal earlier this month and came away really impressed. It’s an enhanced version of the 2017 JRPG with new characters, dialogue and gameplay elements, all of which add up to make a potentially fantastic package.

“If you loved Persona 5, Royal expands upon Atlus’ monolithic JRPG in all the right ways, building on its foundations with warranted refinements that simply make it feel better in every conceivable way,” reads the preview. Persona 5 Royal is set to launch exclusively for PS4 on March 31, 2020.