Persona 4 Revival promises to be less homophobic than the original game

Some of Persona 4’s more problematic aspects are being toned down for the remake, to be ‘more fitting for the world that we live in now.’

After the success of Persona 3 Reload, it was hardly shocking to see Atlus follow it up with a Persona 4 remake, which is dubbed Persona 4 Revival and was given a release date of February 18, 2027 during the last Xbox showcase.

Unlike Persona 3, though, Persona 4 arguably doesn’t need a fancy remake, especially when it already saw an updated revision with Persona 4 Golden, which is widely available on modern platforms and is already a fantastic role-player.

That said, some elements of its otherwise enjoyable script have not aged well, but it sounds like Atlus is conscious of this and has promised some adjustments have been made to certain scenes and dialogue.

During an interview with Anime Corner, Persona series general producer Kazuhisa Wada was asked if any of Persona 4’s more controversial scenes have been rewritten for the remake.

According to Wada, nothing too drastic has been altered but, while he didn’t go into specifics, he did highlight the character of Yosuke as an example of how the remake will handle things differently.

‘We haven’t really changed anything about the story or the characters’ thoughts or how they act or anything. All that’s kept the same. We are keeping that as is and we’ve just maybe changed the way that we express some of this a little bit, mostly with Yosuke really,’ explained Wada.

‘He’s a little bit insensitive in terms of how he treats outsiders sometimes. So we wanted to lighten that up and make it a little bit more fitting for the world that we live in now.’

For context, Yosuke has an infamous reputation among Persona fans for making some less than progressive comments throughout the game. In particular, he can be misogynistic towards his female friends (at one point signing them up to a beauty pageant without them knowing) and makes a couple of homophobic jabs at the character of Kanji; all of which are played for laughs.

While it can be argued that it would make sense for Yosuke to exhibit these traits, being a teenager, he’s never shown to regret them or grow as a person. So, it’s not unsurprising that Persona 4 Revival will make tweaks to his dialogue, especially when he’s meant to be the player character’s best friend.

Interestingly, it’s common knowledge among Persona 4 fans that Yosuke was meant to be the game’s sole male romance option, but it was cut during development.

It’s unlikely, though, that Atlus will rework this into Persona 4 Revival, since Wada has said that there will be no major changes to the main cast: ‘…we haven’t changed anything core about the characters. We’ve kept everything as is, but we’ve just brushed up the kind of corners of that to make sure it all fits and really is appropriate for the characters and for the age that we live in now.’

Pre-release footage does suggest there’ll be more drastic changes, however, such as how the beauty pageant scene is handled. Plus, the graphics have obviously received an overhaul and there are new battle mechanics.

Wada has also confirmed that Revival will feature entirely new content that wasn’t in the original game or Golden, although, unsurprisingly, he refused to elaborate.

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