Above all, Persona 3 Reload has new social events and activities that truly elevate its central characters. These create a stronger sense of togetherness within the party, showing them really forming conterraneo bonds with each other and having lives outside the confines of their duties with SEES (the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad, which is an afterschool club for persona users, mind you).

The graphics have been upgraded to next-gen standards and it features many of Persona 5 Royal’s quality-of-life improvements.

Fully immerse yourself in an emotional, gripping journey with new scenes, character interactions, and additional voiceover. Choose how to meaningfully spend each day through various activities from exploring the Port Island to forging genuine bonds with beloved characters. Build and command your optimal team to take down otherworldly Shadows and climb closer to the truth.

This is where building Social Links becomes a crucial part of the gameplay loop. Social Links can provide bonuses allowing you to instantly level up Personas when fusing them in the Velvet Room or unlock new recipes to create powerful Personas you won’t find from destroying Shadows.

Interacting with the Great Clock will allow two of your party members, currently not in your active party, to level up to the main character’s current level, severely cutting down the time required to level grind back-up party members.

With a stellar visual overhaul and countless small but impactful changes, Persona 3 Reload tells a timeless story of tragedy and hope with sharp emotional sincerity.

Of course, I can’t talk about Persona 3 Reload’s presentation without giving a shout-out to the soundtrack. Persona 3’s beloved hip-hop and rap-rock soundtrack has been remastered for Persona 3 Reload and even features a couple of new songs.

That said, much of the dialogue and many of the Social Links were significantly overhauled for the female lead in Portable, so it would’ve been a tall task either way.

Although not loads had been seen in terms of Persona 3 Reload trailers since its Xbox Games Showcase announcement, new trailers unveiled during Gamescom 2023 both reintroduce us to the game's cast and story - as shown above - along with a BGM and gameplay trailer.

The few unlucky humans who don’t get turned into coffins become prey to horrifying creatures called Shadows, who only appear during the Dark Hour.

Tartarus is a massive, towering dungeon boasting hundreds of floors to crawl through, with enemy Shadows lurking around every corner. You will need to engage the Shadows in turn-based combat and use your party’s Persona abilities to exploit their weaknesses to defeat them.

Even the side characters you interact with through the game’s Social Link events get this treatment, as every major Social Link event is now fully voiced for the first time in the Persona series.

Plus, the desktop computer that sits in the lobby is also usable to juice personality stats. Yamaguchi and Niitsuma acknowledged that the dorm was always a special environment for these games, and the effort they put into creating a home-y, social space gives the S.E.E.S. HQ a welcome warmth against the game's largely bleak main narrative.

Here's everything you need to know persona 3 reload gameplay about the P3 Reload release date, including gameplay trailers and latest changes to the PS2 era RPG.