Atlus Says Persona 3 Reload The Answer DLC Isn't Cut Content

gamerant.com:

A senior Atlus official has indirectly dismissed the recent speculation that Episode Aigis: The Answer was cut from the day-one version of Persona 3 Reload. The DLC was announced at the newest Xbox Partner Preview event in early March, with Atlus revealing it as the third and final part of the Persona 3 Reload expansion pass.

Shortly thereafter, prominent Sega leaker Midori took to Twitter to state that the development work on The Answer, a remake of the Persona 3: FES epilogue chapter of the same name, was already finished by the time Reload hit the store shelves in early February 2024. The claim took the fandom by surprise, with some fans taking it to mean that The Answer was cut from the day-one version of the RPG in order to sell Persona 3 Reload's $35 expansion pass.

And while Midori's track record with both Atlus and other Sega-related leaks has been impeccable up until now, it would appear that this particular information was either inaccurate or misinterpreted. That's according to a recent Famitsu interview with Episode Aigis Director Yu Hashizume and Persona series Producer Kazuhisa Wada, which saw the latter reveal that The Answer wasn't greenlit until after Persona 3 Reload was announced in June 2023. Meanwhile, Hashizume said that Episode Aigis is approximately «40-50%» done right now, according to Persona Central's translation of the interview.

The two officials have hence indirectly dismissed the claim that the Persona 3 Reload version of The Answer is cut content. The fact that the Xbox Partner Preview teaser featured Japanese instead of English voice acting dovetails with this status update, as Atlus traditionally does English localizations after its projects are content-complete.

This turn of events marks the first high-profile occasion on which Midori was apparently wrong about anything since they started leaking information on various Sega projects in late 2022. It hence serves as a good reminder that all unofficial info of this sort should be taken