Atlus has set a high bar for Persona 6 to clear. It's been very explicit about its desire for Persona 6 to be an even better game than Persona 5, which will take a lot of heavy lifting. After all, Persona 5's widespread appeal and well-received adjustments to Persona traditions have made the series more popular than ever. If Persona 6 wants to surpass Persona 5, then it needs to closely examine what made Persona 5 work and build on those elements. The only way to go is up; Persona 6 can't surpass Persona 5 by going back to basics.
There's plenty of areas where Persona 6 could grow. Anything from combat to Persona fusion is on the table for enhancement or expansions. Confidants are a particularly rich area for growth in Persona 6. Joker's Confidants, a helpful circle of friends scattered around Tokyo, empower Joker through their friendships. Persona 5's Confidants are an enhanced version of the previous games' Social Links; in general, Confidants are more rewarding and less precarious than Social Links. Even so, there's a couple of ways in which Confidants could change. Although Persona 6 doesn't necessarily need to overhaul Confidants completely, it should build on the groundwork put in place by Persona 5.
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Persona 6 Needs Consistent Confidants
One of the biggest problems that Persona 5's Confidants suffered from was that their usefulness wasn't consistent. Certain Confidants, like Tae Takemi and Hifumi Togo, provided incomparable levels of utility that made them pretty much essential to befriend. Others, such as Ichiko Ohya, really didn't serve any purpose, or at the very least were so niche that they weren't worth investment. Unfortunately, these Confidants' significant flaws often only came to light after spending several in-game days befriending them. That's a big deal considering how precious a Persona protagonist's spare time can be.
In developing Persona 6, Atlus needs to create a new roster of Confidants who are consistently useful and worth befriending. While it's inevitable that Persona 6 players will decide some Confidants are more useful than others, Atlus should do its best to balance Confidant abilities between being unique and reliably impactful. On the whole, Persona 5 did well to balance Confidant abilities, providing a lot of ways to improve the game's combat and exploration. The abilities mostly broke down when they failed to interact meaningfully with more abstract mechanics, like item drops and Palace Security. Persona 6 can still make Confidants with abstract utility, so long as the mechanics they interact with are important.
Persona 6 Confidants Should Be Accessible
Persona 5's Confidants also suffered from unavailability. Each Confidant in the game has a set schedule of days in which Joker can interact with them. Atlus doesn't need to abandon Confidant schedules entirely, since it's a nice piece of realism to add into the game, but it'd be helpful if Persona 6 made Confidants available more often. Some Persona 5 Confidants are only available for about half of each in-game week, which can make the player's schedule tight when they're trying to max out as many Confidants as possible. Atlus should consider loosening up Confidant schedules a little so players have more flexibility.
Beyond Confidant schedules, Persona 5 also locked certain Confidants behind specific and sometimes obtuse events. Persona 5 clearly pointed players in the direction of some potential Confidant, as well as what Joker needed to do to start befriending them. However, others like Toranosuke Yoshida and Shinya Oda are locked behind rather abstract circumstances, making them easy to miss completely. Confidants don't all need to be easy to find, but they should also never be a hassle to connect with. Persona 6 would be wise to make every potential Confidant reasonably visible just so players won't kick themselves for overlooking potential friends.
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Confidants in Persona 6's Story
Persona 6 additionally needs to think critically about which Confidants it integrates directly into the story and which are optional. The Persona 6 protagonist will inevitably be surrounded by fellow Persona users, just like the Investigation Team and the Phantom Thieves. It stands to reason that the Persona 6 protagonist will start a Confidant relationship with some of their team members. Oddly enough, Persona 5 was inconsistent when it came to Phantom Thieves as Confidants. While Joker automatically develops a level 1 bond with most of them, he has to go out of his way to connect with Haru Okumura and Yusuke Kitagawa. It's unfortunate that Persona 5 does this. It contributes to making these characters feel like outsiders, even on their own team.
Ideally, Persona 6 will let the protagonist start a Confidant bond with every one of their team members, and then leave the rest of the work to the player. At the same time, Persona 6 shouldn't lean too heavily on automatic Confidants, or it'll lose an important source of player engagement. Persona 5 had a good, short list of automatic Confidants with major roles in the plot. Goro Akechi is the only character who really deserved to have his own Confidant arc because of his complicated relationship with Joker; thankfully Persona 5 Royal resolved that issue. Atlus should make sure there's plenty of Confidants tied into the game's plot without making all of them scripted friendships that the player has no control over.
Persona Still Has Room to Grow
Any and all of these little changes would go a long way to making Persona 6 a worthy successor to Persona 5. These are only potential changes to Confidants, too; Atlus still has everything from combat to dungeon exploration and non-Confidant downtime activities to think about. Persona 6's mission of surpassing Persona 5 is difficult, but not impossible. Ultimately, Persona 6 will succeed if it leans on many things that made Persona 5 work while introducing small changes that make the game – and the franchise – better. Persona 6 can still make use of the franchise's habit of sticking to tradition as long as it improves on its predecessors in little, significant ways.
Persona 6 is in development.
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