Every Little Detail We Learned About Persona 5 Royal After Going Hands-On

Persona 5 Royal is expanding on the already massive base game with new characters, new story, new areas, and more. As with Persona 3 FES and Persona 4 Golden, the re-release promises a wealth of new content. At a recent preview event we managed to get our hands on Persona 5 Royal for roughly one hour.

While an hour is just a chip in a massive 100-hour game like Persona 5 Royal, there are still a number of little details we learned. Our demo let us play through parts of Kamoshida’s Palace and explore the new area of Kichijoji in Tokyo.

We’ve compiled everything into a handy list for your perusal, separating the changes we noticed between Kamoshida’s Palace and everything else.

For something more in-depth you can check out our full hands-on preview of Persona 5 Royal.

Kamoshida’s Palace

• Kamoshida’s Palace introduces the grappling hook, giving you more options for infiltrating and jumping onto roofs.
• With that, Kamoshida’s Palace has been hugely expanded. There are brand new areas, like a courtyard and tower.
• More visual effects have been added, like dazzling rays coming in through windows at Kamoshida’s Palace.
• In Palaces you can find hidden rooms with “Will Seeds.” There are three Will Seeds in each palace, and collecting one restores a small amount of SP.
• The Kamoshida battle has been altered slightly, and Mishima and Shiho now appear during the battle.
• The security meter in the palace starts at 40 percent instead of zero.

Other Gameplay Details

• Character portraits have been redone to be more animated, and look better than ever.
• One night while asleep Joker had a dream about Kawakami, and gave points toward raising the Confidant level.
• There are new Personas added in for example, Cait Sith.
• Kichijoji is a bright new location to explore that has a wealth of shops where you can buy new gifts, new food options, and more.
• Kichijoji has a place called Penguin Sniper where you can play darts and billiards.
• Playing Darts lets you boost the power of your character’s Baton Pass, if you win.
• Playing Darts uses the motion options of the DualShock 4. You have to aim by moving the controller and then throw by swinging it forward.
• There are new side quests tied to Kichijoji, like finding an elderly man making trouble at night.
• A new quick menu can be opened while exploring that lets you easily find available confidants or view your social stats.
• The new Thieves Den gives you a location you can run around in and works as a gallery. You can watch videos, listen to music, or even play a card game called Tycoon with your party members.
• Thieves Den is accessed through the title menu or via the main menu in-game.
• Stepping on Transformation Tiles at the top of Thieves Den will let you run around as the other party members.
• To unlock things in Thieves Den you’ll need coins, which you unlock through playing the game.
• Some of the unlockables relate to the Persona 5 anime, and you can also unlock concept art.

Persona 5 Royal is set to launch on March 31, 2020 on PlayStation 4. If you need something to hold you over until then, you might want to check out Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore on Nintendo Switch.