Persona 3 Reload’s Episode Aigis DLC Was Dropped from the Base Game Due to Development Difficulties

Episode Aigis, the paid expansion that’s coming to Persona 3 Reload in September, was originally going to be included in the remake itself. This is according to a Famitsu interview with producer Kazuhisa Wada (as translated by Persona Central), who explains that development cycle difficulties forced the team to abandon its ambitions.

“We wanted to make it happen from the first drafts of P3R, as we felt that it would be essential to have the concluding arc if we were remaking Persona 3,” says Wada. “Due to various circumstances, however, there were a lot of difficulties which had to be overcome in order to make the remake a reality, with challenges from the outset of the main P3R project. As a result we had to abandon the remake of Episode Aigis.”

But of course, Atlus has been able to revisit the project and plan it as paid DLC — so what changed? “Deep down, I couldn’t just give up on it, so even while developing the main story I kept searching for ways to make it happen,” Wada admits. He goes on to say that thanks to support from fans of Persona 3 Reload, the team decided to push ahead with the expansion after all.

What’s more, the company was able to assign Yu Hashizume as the director of Episode Aigis — something that apparently wasn’t possible during Remake’s core development cycle.

There’s no doubt that cynicism will cast a shadow over all of this, however — especially given Atlus’ history of questionable consumer-facing decisions. But as of right now, this is the official word from Reload’s producer. Episode Aigis was going to be included, it was dropped, and then it was picked back up to be sold as DLC (we still don’t know what the pricing structure is, by the way).

What do you make of this? Are you looking forward to Episode Aigis, or are you done with Persona 3 Reload? Grab your evoker in the comments section below.