Will Persona 4 Revival feature Persona 4 Golden content?

It’s official: Persona 4 Revival, the long-awaited remake of Persona 4, will be out in 2027. More often than not, the release of a remake is a divisive event. Support for modernized graphics and wider access is usually followed by concerns that any alterations might spoil the original work. While it's too early to know if Atlus is going to deliver a good remake with Persona 4 Revival, its most recent trailer suggests we can expect to see a golden future for the game.

Persona 4 Revival was just a rumor until 2025, when Atlus released a teaser during that year’s Xbox Games Showcase. Ahead of this year’s Xbox Games Showcase — during which Atlus indeed announced Persona 4 Revival’s release date — expectant fans scoured the internet for any additional information about the game. This led to people discovering that P4 Revival received a CERO B rating (ages of 12 and up) in Japan, while in the US it received a Mature 17+ rating from ESRB. While the difference in rating could simply indicate that some scenes have been changed, fans have started to speculate that it could actually mean Persona 4 Revival might launch without the Golden content.

With Persona 3, Atlus not only consolidated the formula it would work upon in its two next mainline games, but also established a trend it would replicate for both Persona 4 and Persona 5: expanded final versions of each game, launched after the initial release. Persona 3 led to Persona 3 FES, Persona 4 turned into Persona 4 Golden, and Persona 5 resulted in Persona 5 Royal. Although the original version of each game offers a complete experience, the final versions come with extra content that expands the story and establishes new canonical endings.

Image: Atlus/Sega

Persona 4 Revival’s release date trailer appeased distressed fans — who have been worried about not seeing all the beloved content from Persona 4 Golden — by quickly showing a scene featuring Marie, a girl wearing a blue beret, inside the game's version of the iconic Velvet Room.

Marie never existed in the OG version of Persona 4, but she became a key character in Persona 4 Golden. Besides her role as part of the Velvet Room gang, Marie has her own social link, which allows you to develop a friendship — or a romantic relationship. The addition doesn't change the events of the campaign for most of the game, but maxing out Marie's social link is a prerequisite in Persona 4 Golden to unlock the game's true ending.

While the original game already has a good story, the addition of Marie to the plot turns what feels like a somewhat rushed ending into a more holistic and coherent narrative. Persona 4 Golden uses an extended calendar and a brand-new character to better develop the story behind the true ending, making it feel more complete. On top of that, with the release of Golden, Persona 4 received a special epilogue that became one of the most heartwarming endings in the series. I won't say much about it, in case you haven’t played, but it makes the whole journey worth it.

Image: Atlus/Sega via Polygon

Sure, nothing has been confirmed and maybe Marie's inclusion in the game doesn't outright mean that all Golden content will be featured. But Atlus does seem to be suggesting we should be optimistic about it. If you compare the Persona 4 Revival trailer with Persona 3 Reload’s, you see that, in the latter, no elements indicating the existence of content added in the FES version were presented by the developer. If we consider that — and the fact that FES content was later sold as a separate paid DLC titled Episode Aigis: The Answer — we have solid reasons to believe Marie and everything else from Golden will be in the Persona 4 Revival base game.

Whether the possibility of having Golden's content not being part of the remake was true or not, all it took was Atlus showing a two-second scene featuring Marie in the trailer to demonstrate that the developer understands how important Golden is to the experience of this remake. Let’s hope it pans out.

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