Recent leaks seem to suggest thatPersona 5 Strikerswill be one of January 2022’s free PS Plus games.Strikerswas released in the West earlier this year and proved to be a delightful follow-up to the events ofPersona 5in the form of a Musou-style action game. While it’s certainly a worthy spinoff sequel toPersona 5,Strikerswouldn’t make a very goodPS Plus titlegiven how much it leans on the player understanding the events that took place in the original title. Instead, a greatPersonagame to be given for free on the service would bePersona 5 Royal.
PS Plus is a great service that generally has good offerings and, whilePersona 5 Strikersis by all accounts a quality title, it doesn’t feel like a good fit for general audiences who don’t know anything aboutPersona. That’s not a sentiment being used to gatekeep; instead, it simply means that the spinoff just isn’t a great place for a prospective fan to start, and thatPersona 5 Royalwould be a much better offering for anyone looking to get into the series.
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Persona 5 Strikers Doesn’t Hold Newcomer’s Hands
There’s something to be said for sequels that just get right into the meat of a game without feeling the need to catch up new players to what’s going on. While that’s not always a great way to handle a sequel, it works inPersona 5 Strikersgiven the fact that it’s a niche spinoff title and not a full-blown new entry in the mainlinePersonaseries.The ending ofPersona 5is pretty complicatedwith plenty of major narrative twists, and the aftermath changes a lot of big things for its cast. As such, if someone were starting the series withStrikers, a direct follow-up toPersona 5, they’d be doing themself a major disservice as the opening hours spoil just about every major moment thatP5builds to for nearly 100 hours.
What’s more,Persona 5 Strikersdoes a lot to include most of the mechanical elements surrounding the titular personas despite being a completely different genre than its predecessor. Whilethe persona fusion systemand the rest of the options available to players in the Velvet Room aren’t hard to understand if properly turorialized,Strikersdoesn’t do much to onboard newcomers to the series about how those sorts of things work and their importance. Players are able to scoot by for a lot of the game with underleveled personas, but as things start ramping up in difficulty towards the end of the game, they’re likely going to struggle if they’re brand-new to the series and not well-versed in persona fusion.
Persona 5 Royal is a Great Place to Start
Instead of havingStrikersup for free on PS Plus, it would make a lot more sense for Sony to listPersona 5 Royalon the service. The game is a great introduction to thePersonaseries, as it starts from the very beginning ofJoker and the rest of the Phantom Thieves' story, requiring no preexisting knowledge of the series to play.Persona 5is currently available for free for anyone with a PS5 thanks to the PS Plus Collection, but most fans agree thatRoyalis the definitive way to experience the game due to all of its new content and the quality of life changes made to the original.
Given the pick-up-and-play nature of PS Plus, ifPersona 5 Strikersis listed, a lot of people who haven’t played the original may try it out, only to see the game andentirePersonaseriesas not for them due to how littleStrikersis interested in catching newcomers up to speed.Royal, on the other hand, is a great introduction to the series and its concepts, so it would likely be able to bring in plenty of new fans who try out everything given away on PS Plus.
Persona 5 Strikersis available now for PC, PS4, and Switch.
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