Persona 5 players won’t get a free PS5 upgrade

While the news of Persona 5 Royal finally being ported to Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PC was arguably more exciting, Atlus also confirmed that the game will see a re-release on the PlayStation 5. Naturally, those who already own Persona 5 Royal on PlayStation 4 have wondered if this means they’ll be entitled to a free next-gen upgrade.

Unfortunately, it turns out that’s not the case. An FAQ page on the official Japanese website for the Persona series answers some key questions about the upcoming ports, and while we are using Google Translate, it quite bluntly says that there is no upgrade path whatsoever for PlayStation owners. It adds “We would appreciate it if you could purchase Persona 5 Royal for PlayStation 5 when you play with PlayStation 5.”

This is unlikely to sit well with fans who already bought the game at full retail price when it launched in 2020. In fact, there are many who have technically bought it twice if you include the vanilla Persona 5 from 2017. Now Atlus is asking them to buy it a third time and not even at a discount.

Atlus isn’t the only one guilty of this. This year, Sony decided it wouldn’t offer free PS4 to PS5 upgrades for its first-party releases like Gran Turismo 7 and God of War: Ragnarok, instead charging customers an extra $10 if they wanted to upgrade from the PS4 to the PS5 version. Third-party developers and publishers aren’t beholden to this rule, however, so Atlus’ decision is entirely its own. Compare this with Microsoft’s offer, where buying a game for Xbox One entitles you to the Xbox Series X version and vice versa.

It’s worth noting that Persona 5 Royal’s PS5 release isn’t expected to have any new features or content that wasn’t present in the original. However, it will reportedly come with all 45 DLC packs (such as character costumes and extra Personas) at no extra cost. This applies to the Xbox, Switch, and PC versions as well.

Persona 5 Royal will launch for PS5, Xbox, Switch, and PC on October 21. Persona 4 Golden and Persona 3 Portable will arrive at a later date. However, while they will come to PS4, Xbox, Switch, and PC, Atlus will not be porting them to the PS5.