Persona 4 remake news feels all-but inevitable, but a little rating weirdness means I wonder about Golden content

Almost exactly a year ago, Persona 4's seemingly inevitable remake broke cover for the first time at an Xbox Games Showcase. Well, sort of. There wasn't much of it, you see. The trailer consisted mostly of the game's protagonist running around a barren Inaba Shopping District, with the odd panning shot of other—equally depopulated—locations from the game, giving the impression Atlus was in early stages on the project and had been forced to whip up something quick out of the materials it had for a reveal.

But perhaps it's due sooner than that first trailer would suggest. Fans have spotted that Persona 4 Revival now has an ESRB rating—which you can verify for yourself on the game's Xbox store page—suggesting that, well, there's enough of the game to rate, for one thing. Those of you hip to the calendar might also note that this rating has popped up very close to the June 7 Xbox Games Showcase; I'd bet all my Third Girl's Talc we're getting some P4R news there.

So, when will we finally get hi-definition Charlie Tunoku? This is just speculation, but Atlus revealed Persona 3 Reload—its Persona 3 remake—in June of 2023 and released it in February of 2024. That went quite well: Persona 3 Reload became the fastest-selling game in the studio's history, so I wouldn't be surprised if it went for the same one-two punch again (albeit with the caveat that any announcements this weekend won't be the game's reveal), putting out P4R in February of 2027.

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We'll just have to wait and see. One wrinkle, though: Persona 4 Revival's ESRB (and PEGI) rating is identical to Persona 4 Golden's, which makes sense. But, as spotted by The Gamer, P4R's Japanese CERO rating is actually lower than Golden's: CERO B rather than CERO C, meaning it's suitable for ages 12 and above. That's the same as the rating for the original, non-Golden PS2 Persona 4.

Which is a bit curious, isn't it? It's possible, of course, that CERO has simply chilled out since it rated P4G—or that Japanese children have become cooler—but I do wonder if it means some of the risqué scenes added for P4G have been pared back or stripped out.

Persona 3 Reload, after all, didn't come out with all things Persona 3 packed in: the female protagonist from Persona 3 Portable never showed up at all, while the Episode Aigis FES content had to wait for a DLC. Is Atlus pulling the same trick again? We probably don't have to wait long to find out.

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