Is the Female Protagonist in Persona 3 Reload? – Answered

While she wasn’t available in the original release of Persona 3, the Female Protagonist (or Femc, for short)  was an exclusive addition to the Portable re-release, and has amassed a huge following ever since. Having a female perspective gave a whole new experience to the game’s original somber story, as well as new Social Link options and plot lines. 

But she has been for a long time classified as “non-canon”, despite her appearance in Persona Q2 in which she came from an alternative universe. Well, is she now included in the Persona 3 Reload remake?

Is the Femc Included in Persona 3 Reload?

Unfortunately, Persona 3 Reload doesn’t feature the Female Protagonist. Despite fans claiming for more Femc representation, she wasn’t even included as DLC for the P3 dancing game (while the whole Persona 5 cast did make the cut, somehow), which made people think they had forgotten her. And it seems like they kinda did.

During an interview with Famitsu translated by Persona Central, producer Ryota Niitsuma affirmed that Reload won’t feature the female protagonist from Portable in any way, and will also be excluding the extra “The Answer” scenario from Persona 3 FES, unavailable in the Portable remake. QoL features and main story content from those games (available in the Male Protagonist route) will be added, though.

Related: Is Persona 3 Reload on PS5? – Answered

Her proper appearance in Q2 and her female Orpheus being included in P5 Royal shed some hope for her to be included in a potential remake, but she’s definitely not in the base game, according to the developers.

This strikes me rather strangely, especially when more recent games like Fire Emblem: Engage have proven that players are willing to have multiple protagonist choices. It makes it even worse since the said protagonist is already established and beloved by the community.

Is The Female Protagonist Available as DLC?

No mentions of the Femc as a potential DLC were made yet, but if there’s any way she could get into the game, it’s either through a paid DLC later or in a “definitive” version that could get announced a few months after Reload is out. Atlus has been doing this with their releases for a while now, so it wouldn’t be surprising.

Whether such DLC/enhanced version would exist or not, only time can tell. But as for now, Portable is still the only way to experience a female protagonist in a modern Persona game, despite the game itself not being as modern anymore. Maybe Persona 6 can change that when they announce it 10 years from now.