Persona 3 Reload Producer Shoots Down Hopes for Addition of P3P’s Female Protagonist

One of the producers behind Persona 3 Reload has confirmed that the female main protagonist seen in Persona 3 Portable will almost surely never come to the new remake. With P3R now slated to receive The Answer from Persona 3 FES in the form of DLC, it’s nearly a content-complete version of all various iterations of Persona 3. The only remaining omission is Kotone Shiomi, who is the female playable character that appeared only in P3P. Despite numerous fan requests to see the “FeMC” appear in P3 Reload, it’s now known that this isn’t something that Atlus ever intends to add. 

In a new conversation with Game Informer (via PC Gamer), Persona’s franchise producer Kazuhisa Wada revealed that Atlus had talked about adding the P3P female protagonist to Persona 3 Reload when planning its upcoming DLC. Wada said that as this discussion took place, though, those at Atlus realized how much work would need to have been done to make it possible. As a result, this DLC would have come about far too late after the release of Persona 3 Reload for it to still be relevant, which is ultimately what led Atlus to nix the idea. 

“The more we discussed it, the more unlikely it became, The development time and costs would not have been manageable,” Wada said. “P3R has just released, and there is currently a lot of player interest, so if we are to do an additional release, it has to be now. But since it is not possible for us to release P3R with the female protagonist in this window, we just can’t do it. I’m really sorry to all of the fans who were holding out hope, but it is likely never going to happen.”

While this might be disappointing to hear, it’s hard to find fault with the decision that Wada and those at Atlus came to. Essentially the entirety of Persona 3 Reload would have needed to have been re-written and re-recorded to some degree to account for a different central protagonist. Still, if there is one silver lining here, it’s that Persona 3 Portable has been available on modern platforms since 2023, which means that those looking to play the FeMC route in any capacity can do so with relative ease. 

As for what’s next for Persona 3 Reload, the game’s forthcoming expansion, Episode Aigis: The Answer, will launch next month on September 10th. The month after on October 11th, Atlus will then release Metaphor: ReFantazio, which is the first entry in the Japanese studio’s latest RPG franchise.