Atlus’ localization team has confirmed that certain scenes that were previously deemed as homophobic in Persona 5 will be altered and edited for the upcoming Western release of the enhanced version of the game Persona 5 Royal.
The news has been confirmed by several Atlus team members, including Senior Project Manager Yu Namba and Communications Manager Ari Advincula.
When Persona 5 was first released, the game received universal acclaim. However, one criticism many fans had was in its harmful portrayals of queerness. The critique predominantly stemmed from the inclusion of two openly gay male characters who popped up several times in the game. Beyond checking all the boxes for every major gay stereotype, the two men’s behavior bordered on predatory, saying things like “I’m going to eat you up!” and “These lovely boys just look like they’re just begging to be hit on!” as they stalked Ryuji and Joker (who are both minors). Though the scenes were inconsequential in terms of the game’s actual storyline, they propagate the harmful stereotype of predatory gay men.
Ari Advincula commented on the change during a Persona 5 Royal preview event, saying in a quote to IGN, “We actually were able to go through some of the lines that players may not have received as well, look at that feedback, and then [update it] for the current generation.”
GameSpot also received quotes about the change from Yu Namba, who admitted the limitations when localizing a game from Japan. “As a localization manager, I really cannot do too much about what has already made it into the game.” However, Namba assured fans that Atlus’ localization team had heard and agreed with fans’ critiques: “Our team members felt a little bit of awkwardness about when working on it. And with Royal, we were determined to see if we could do something about it at least localization-wise.”
Both team members clarified that the original scenes with these characters would still exist in the Western release of Persona 5 Royal, though the dialogue would be altered slightly to be less predatory and overall less offensive.
“It’s not a significant change,” Namba explained, “but I think there’s enough of a change that people who weren’t comfortable going through that part in Persona 5 would feel better this time around.”
That said, reports from Persona 5 Royal’s release in Japan indicate that the depictions of these gay characters were unaltered in the game’s original release.
However, Advincula believes that, at least for the Western release of the game, Royal is “a chance [for Atlus] to make it right.”
Persona 5 Royal will be released on March 31, 2020, for the PlayStation 4. The game was released in Japan on October 31, 2019.
Source: IGN, GameSpot
