Persona 3 Reload leads decided against adding Portable's female protagonist to the JRPG because it'd take too long and be too expensive
It's bad news for anyone who was holding onto the hope that Persona 3 Reload might add in a female protagonist eventually, as it's now been confirmed that there's "no chance" of it happening.
For context, even though the RPG remake was received very well when it launched last month, many of us were critical of the fact that it was missing some content introduced in Persona 3 FES and Portable. Namely, the female playable character Kotone Shiomi, introduced in Portable, and the extra epilogue content called "The Answer," which was exclusive to FES, were both absent. Persona 3 Reload was sold as being a remake of the original Persona 3, which didn't include either of these additions, but it still felt as though we weren't getting the definitive experience with all of the previously released content.
For this same reason, it was especially bittersweet earlier this week when an expansion pass for Persona 3 Reload was revealed, complete with the epilogue content from FES, but still no Kotone in sight. Speaking to Famitsu in a new interview (translated via Google and DeepL), general producer Kazuhisa Wada states that even though adding the female playable character was considered during Reload's development, "the hurdles were too high."
Specifically, he explains, adding Kotone would have had a lengthy development time which would have cost "several times as much" as the epilogue. He adds that the Persona team has "a mission to work on not only remakes but also 'completely new'" projects, too.
Even though it's by no means the same as having her added to the game officially, it's worth noting that modders are working on making it possible to play as Kotone in the PC version of Persona 3 Reload, which is better than nothing. As well as using a female character model, the UI has also been changed from Reload's usual blue palette to a pink one, much like it was in Portable if you chose to play as Kotone. It's still a work in progress, with contributors making changes to things like gendered dialogue throughout the story, but it's one way to experience the game differently if you're not playing on a console.
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