PlayStation Plus is about to lose one of the best games of all time

Buried at the bottom of the latest PlayStation Plus blog post announcing its new free games for April 2022 comes some very unwelcome news for PS5 and PS4 gamers.

That's because as of 11 May 2022 Sony has now officially confirmed that "Persona 5 will leave the PS Plus Collection". No reason is given as to why the insanely highly rated JRPG is leaving the service.

Persona 5, for the uninitiated, is the latest major release in the long-running and much-loved Persona video game series, with this title receiving a host of incredible review scores on its release.

Perfect 10/10 and 5/5 scores can be found at a myriad of gaming publications, but arguably most noteworthy is the near-perfect 39/40 that legendary Japanese gaming publication Famitsu gave Persona 5. Famitsu is famous for its harsh scoring policies, so the fact that Persona 5 comes away with what is almost a completely perfect score tells you all you need to know as to whether you should play this game or not.

As such, as instructed by Sony in the official blog post, PlayStation gamers should, "add the game to your game library before [May 11] to continue to access it while you have an active PlayStation Plus subscription."

Here at T3 we're definitely sad to see PlayStation Plus lose such a fantastic game as Persona 5, which offers over 80 hours of highly addictive JRPG gameplay. Persona games are so great as they have their own distinctive pace (they're set over the course of a year) and mix turn-based combat with exploration, dating sim mechanics, mini games, impactful visuals and some of the funkiest music in any video game series ever.

As such, we recommend any PlayStation Plus gamer who hasn't already downloaded Persona 5 to do so immediately. Already played Persona 5? Then consider playing Persona 4 Golden or, if you want to sample the purists choice from the series, the superb (and super dark!) Persona 3.

Persona 5 premise

Persona 5, like past titles in the series, is set in the Persona universe and its story centres on a group of high school students who have the power to conjure and utilise Personas, physical manifestations of their inner psyche. The gamer plays the central character in this group of students, who has a troubled past, and as a team the group use their personas to rid the city of Tokyo, where the game is set, of corruption. This is done by the team travelling to a supernatural realm called the "Metaverse", which is the the physical manifestation of humanity's subconscious desires.

As such, Persona 5's gameplay transitions between the real world, where the player has to live an ordinary life of a high school student, and the Metaverse, which is where the player and the team need to use their Personas to fight enemies. Combat is turn-based and acts on the Pokémon model of rock, paper, scissors but taken to a very complex level, with certain Personas strong in certain attacks and defences. As such, success in combat relies on the gamer harnesses their team's Personas effectively.

Persona 5 Royal

The PlayStation Plus edition of Persona 5 is the standard game, which is excellent and will take the average gamer 80 hours to complete.

An upgraded version of the game called Persona 5 Royal also exists, though, and this includes roughly 15-20 hours of extra content, including missions, companions and additional destinations.

If you want to experience the best version of Persona 5 then it undoubtedly is Royal, however, this version of the game would have to be bought separately by gamers. To see today's best prices on Persona 5 Royal check out the chart below.

In addition to Personal 5 Royal, there is also a special edition version of the game, which is aimed at collectors. This version of the game, which is called Personal 5 Royal: Phantom Thieves Edition comes with a physical Joker mask, which can be worn or displayed on its included stand, as well as steel book, art book, soundtrack and collector's box.