Persona 5 Royal, an enhanced rerelease of the 2017 JRPG, released on PlayStation 4 just under two months ago to roaring success, going on to become the highest rated PlayStation 4 exclusive of the year on MetaCritic, but also becoming the fastest-selling game in the series. While many have praised the game for its deep amount of content, with the story of Persona 5 Royal taking at least 100 hours to beat, that doesn't mean ideas weren't left on the cutting room floor. In truth, Atlus spent roughly 8 years developing the original Persona 5, with the game starting life as a PlayStation 3 exclusive before ultimately launching on PlayStation 4 too.
Now, slowly but surely, fans are discovering that Persona 5 Royal also contains its own slew of cut content, with the newest piece found to take place specifically within the game's new third semester, which allows the player to play through a new story taking place from January to mid-February.
*The rest of this article contains MAJOR spoilers for Persona 5 Royal.*
Upon finishing the original game's final boss, Yaldabaoth, Persona 5 Royal takes a major departure from the original game, in which the presumed deceased Goro Akechi reappears and turns himself into the police in a moment where the protagonist was forced to in the original. This allows players to finally experience the following months in-game, as they were originally skipped over.
The story following this event follows the new guidance councillor, Dr. Takuto Maruki, who wishes to rid the world of unhappiness and take away everyone's suffering, creating a "perfect" world in which everybody has what they want. If the player chooses to side with Maruki, they will be taken to a bad ending cutscene taking place on March 15th skipping over the game's Valentine's Day events. There was, however, a scenario intended to play out if the player chose to taken the game's infamous "harem route".
If all of the female Confidants (with the exception of the Twin Wardens and Sae Niijima) are romanced in Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal, a scenario will play out where the women rightfully berate and condemn Joker for his actions. In Persona 5 Royal, no such event plays out in the third semester, however there was one intended as Twitter user "pan-hime" and YouTuber "Faz" have discovered by datamining Persona 5 Royal's Chinese release. This event plays out the polar opposite of the original's, in which instead of attacking Joker, the women instead praise him as they are all happy to be loved by him, even if he is dating up to 10 women.
Due to the controversial nature of this event, it's somewhat understandable why it was left out of the final game. It is interesting that the data can be found within the Chinese release, but not the Japanese or English versions.
Persona 5 Royal is available now, exclusively for PlayStation 4.