In Ostensible Attempt To Avoid Outrage, Atlus Removes Trans NPC Beach Encounter From ‘Persona 3 Reload’
In a move that can only be read as an attempt to preemptively head off the usual river of outrage-based discourse from the terminally online, Atlus’ remastered Persona 3 Reload has edited its source material to completely remove an interaction between the player character’s party and a transgender NPC.
As seen in all three release versions of the classic RPG – the original Persona 3, the expanded PSP port Persona 3: Portable, and the upcoming Persona 3 Reload – the scene in question occurs on the in-game date of July 21st amidst the party’s summer break beach trip to Yakushima.
Whilst hitting the beach with his friends, in typical teenage boy fashion, party member Junpei insists that he and his male compatriots take advantage of their new surroundings and try their best to pick up girls – or, as he puts it, execute “Operation Babe Hunt”.
[Time Stamp: 21:21]
Unfortunately for the baseball-capped wisecracker, despite his, Akihiko, and Makoto’s (the player character) best efforts, the three end up striking out with nearly every single girl they talk to.
Refusing to let their failures deter them, the three press on, and in doing so eventually catch the attention of an NPC referred to only as Beautiful Lady, who in stark contrast to the teenage girls the boys were hitting on expresses an explicit interest in her new acquaintances, Junpei in particular.
However, just as Junpei is puffing his chest out to ‘seal the deal’, Akihiko notices that the Beautiful Lady has some “some hair on your chin”.
Shocked by this shaving error, the Beautiful Lady in turn exclaims, “I-I missed a spot?!”, prompting Akihiko to press further, “Uh…are you a…?”
But before he can finish his question, the NPC laments “There here goes my chance… I was so close to snagging myself a little boy-toy,” thus confirming the hero’s suspicions.
Mortified by this revelation, Junpei yelps, “Y-ya mean, SHE’s a HE?!”, only for Beautiful Lady to respond, “I guess you fellas aren’t quite ready for a woman like me.”
Packing up her stuff in light of their own striking out, the NPC then tells the boys, “If you decide you want to try something a little spicier, then you know where to find me. Tee-hee.” before ultimately walking away off screen.
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But in the soon-to-release Persona 3 Reload, this entire moment plays out completely differently.
Therein, as seen in an early capture of the scene provided by Kotaku, rather than the team being put off by the woman being transgender, they are instead taken aback by the fact that she is a conspiracy theorist-inspired grifter.
After offering to mutually spread sunscreen on each other, the woman tells Junpei, “You know that sun in the sky isn’t real, right? That’s an artificial sun that got sent into space back in the 1980s.”
“You didn’t know?” she presses the confused hero. “Turns out, that sun sends out harmful rays that mess with your body’s equilibrium. Normal sunscreen doesn’t work. But that’s where this special one comes in! and if you opt in right now, you can three bottles for just 300,000 yen!”
In turn, Akihiko – rather than noticing her chin hairs – observes to Junpei, “Hey, doesn’t she sound kind of strange?”
But before he can answer, Makoto makes the call for the team to run far and away from her.
Left all alone, the woman closes out the interaction by whining “Aww, you’re so cruuuel!” to her escaped marks.
Per Kotaku, this edit has been made to both the Japanese and English releases of Persona 3 Reload – the latter of which is currently set to storm the night on February 2nd via the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC platforms.
As of writing, Atlus has yet to provide any official word as to their reasoning behind this change.
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