Highlights

  • Persona 3 Reload is the start of a potential trend of Persona remakes, with Persona 4 Golden being a likely candidate for a remake.
  • The changes made in Persona 3 Reload, such as new activities and enhanced dungeon design, could shape a potential Persona 4 Golden remake.
  • The inclusion of features from Persona 5 Royal in Persona 3 Reload suggests that a Persona 4 Golden remake could borrow elements from Persona 5 and further enhance its combat.

Persona 3 Reload is still a few months away, but it's hard not to look beyond it. Although the Persona franchise has a sprawling network of spin-offs and side games, it doesn't have much of a remake track record, so Persona 3 Reload feels like the start of something new for the series. Given the new precedent it sets and the broader remake trend in the game industry right now, odds are good that more Persona remakes will come after P3R. Atlus has no shortage of options in this regard, but Persona 4 Golden seems like the most plausible candidate.

Persona 4 and its expanded edition Persona 4 Golden are very close cousins to the Persona 3 family of games. A lot of P4 elements ranging from the UI to third-person dungeon crawling to the new Social Link system were drawn directly from P3, which makes sense, given that the original P3 and P4 released only two years apart. Atlus hasn't confirmed anything, but their close relationship makes P4 feel like a shoo-in for a remake after P3R. Trailers show that P3R notably changes and upgrades a lot of P3's original elements, so a remake of P4 -- or ideally a remake of Persona 4 Golden -- could follow in its wake by upgrading its own story and game elements.

RELATED: Why Persona 4 Golden Should Get a Remake Before Persona 6 Releases

How Persona 3 Reload's Changes Can Shape a Persona 4 Golden Remake

Activities in Persona 4 Golden's Inaba and Yasogami High

The dorm in Persona 3 Reload has a lot of new activities to offer players; the protagonist can cook, watch TV, and work on a rooftop garden, all with his fellow SEES members. These can go a long way to flesh out relationships and diversify the life sim elements of Persona, so a P4G remake could do the same thing. For example, Yasogami High might add new school clubs that let fans hang out with party members and other Social Links under special circumstances, the Shopping District might gain extra businesses with job or shopping opportunities, and Junes might become fully explorable.

Enhancing Persona 4 Golden's Dungeon Crawls

Both P3 and P4 feature procedurally generated dungeons, which helps their replayability, but they were mostly composed of featureless hallways and dead-end treasure rooms, meaning exploration could feel repetitive anyway. Persona 3 Reload's Tartarus looks dramatically enhanced with more diverse architecture and new interactive features, which is an excellent precedent for a P4G remake's dungeons. P4 dungeons already feature some puzzles, but a remake could make them significantly more elaborate, more on par with Persona 5's room-sized puzzles. Aside from that, each dungeon could feature rooms unique to it that draw on the dungeon's design theme and make procedural generation more exciting.

Borrowing From Combat in Persona 5 Royal

P3R already uses a lot from the highly successful Persona 5 Royal. Two key elements from P5R combat are in the remake: Baton Pass, referred to as Shift in P3R; and flashy All-Out Attack finisher screens for the party members. Persona 3 Reload sets these newer ideas up as core Persona components moving forward, and both would be great for Persona 4 Golden. Its memorable cast of characters has more than enough All-Out Attack content to offer, and P5's Baton Pass is too good an innovation on turn-based RPG combat to pass up -- as long as Atlus balances combat around it properly.

Persona 4 Golden's Story Can Grow Further

Persona 4 Golden arguably has a tighter and more complete story, considering P3's occasionally awkward pacing and how Strega falls a little by the wayside, but it can still draw on Persona 3 Reload's story enhancements. Much like how P3R adds new cutscenes and interaction to flesh out Strega and SEES' male members, P4G could use new scenes to strengthen Marie's relationship with the Investigation Team, further integrate the late-game party member Naoto Shirogane before she joins the team, and so on.