Persona 3 Reload will no longer ‘break’ social links between characters

Persona 3 Reload will no longer have the ability to break social links between characters, according to a new interview.

Speaking in Famitsu (as spotted by Noisy Pixel),  director Takuya Yamaguchi said that the ‘broken’ social link state, which would see players permanently fail relationship quests with NPCs, won’t be part of Persona 3 Reload.

“In (Persona 3 Reload), the ‘Broken’ system has been removed,” Yamaguchi confirmed. “However, ‘Reverse’ can still happen, though the conditions have been made severely less strict. So simply leaving a Social Link character alone will not cause it to Reverse, as it did in the original version.”

In the original version of Persona 3, a social link would reverse if a player ignored one NPC for too long, or gave the wrong answers during pivotal dialogue option moments. Players could also be caught on dates with other characters by a character they were romancing, which would also reverse the link.

A reversed link could be recovered, but if the player reversed the link too much, it would be broken, which would see it become unrecoverable for the rest of the game.

The relationship systems of older Persona titles were far more strict than that of those released in recent years. As such, this change to Persona 3 Reload’s system is an apparent attempt to bring it closer in line wih  a game like Persona 5 Royal.

Further reading

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Atlus confirms that Persona 3 Reload and Persona 5 Tactica are also coming to other formats

Switch owners will miss out on the Persona 3 remake, though

Persona 3 Reload will be released in 2024 and will be available on Xbox Game Pass on day one.

The game’s English cast has seemingly been entirely replaced. Veteran voice actors including Allegra Clark (Bloodhound in Apex Legends), Alejandro Saab (Genshin Impact), and Dawn Bennet (Pokemon, Fire Emblem, Fortnite) are among the new cast members.