A remake of domain was recently updated, adding more fuel to the remake rumors, and would follow a pattern established by P3 Reload, which saw a domain update and then an announcement at the 2023 Xbox Games Showcase.

Recently, the original voice actor for P4 party member Yosuke, Yuri Lowenthal, confirmed on Bluesky that he will not be returning as Yosuke, despite wanting to be a part of the alleged remake project. The post has since been taken down, which may have been an accidental confirmation of the project. P3 Reload gave a lot of quality-of-life updates to the original game, like the baton system from Persona 5. If the P4 remake turns out to be real, I think Atlus should turn to its recent hit Metaphor: Refantazio to fix a common complaint with the original game.

Metaphor: ReFantazio Makes Social Links Better

They're Less Time-Restrictive And Better Paced

The Social Link system is a huge part of the Persona series and arguably the most important element. Through Social Link stories and bonds, party gain access to new skills, become romanceable in some cases, cheapen the cost of fusing certain Personas, and more. However, the Social Links were often difficult to max on a first playthrough, leaving a lot of fans frustrated, and that didn't change in P3 Reload, which still had complex social links. Metaphor: Refantazio used essentially the same social link system, but it fixed the long-running issues.

Persona 3 Reload introduced a new social link with Aigis, but it is not available until near the end of the game, making it actually more difficult to max all the social bonds in P3 Reload than in the original game.

The way the Follower Bonds system in Metaphor works is virtually identical to the Social Link system of the Persona games, just less restrictive. In Metaphor, you obtain points towards the next Bond level regardless of whether you answer questions from each person with what they want to hear, preventing the player from stalling on upgrading their Bonds. Metaphor also does a much better job, in my opinion, of balancing the amount of time between dungeon crawling and the Bond stories, leaving plenty of time at the end to do virtually everything in one playthrough.

P3 Reload features quite a few new additions to the updated game, but unfortunately, the original Social Link system is left intact, for better or worse. You can prevent yourself from consistently raising Social Link levels by answering questions incorrectly, or not doing certain things by a certain date. Hopefully, the alleged P4 remake takes it further, with how well-regarded Metaphor was, and makes its Social Link system more in line with Metaphor's.

Persona 4 Remake Doesn't Need To Be Tedious

There's Room For Improvement

If the P4 remake is real, it will release quite a bit after Metaphor, so this would be the perfect opportunity to correct some of the smaller issues with P4. P3 Reload is arguably the best way to experience P3 now, especially with the expansion and Episode Aigis DLC, but it isn't perfect. Metaphor felt like a culmination of everything Atlus had worked on for decades and seemingly perfected a lot of its systems while also introducing new ones.

All three of the modern Persona games are quite lengthy, clocking in at over 80 hours for a full playthrough of the games for most players. Metaphor is actually a bit shorter than that, and just about everything can be done in one 60-hour playthrough, which makes it more appealing to Atlus newcomers. With that game trimming some fat, it would be nice to see some of the original P4 elements streamlined for a smoother experience, like the controversial and convoluted way to get the true ending.

P4 is an outstanding game and my second favorite of the franchise behind P5. Many of P5's gameplay elements and visual design choices were applied to P3 Reload, so I'm assuming the same will probably happen to this supposed P4 remake. However, it would be nice for the Social Link system to follow Metaphor's path and get an overhaul, at least when it comes to how precise players have to be to max all the Links. Hopefully, we'll get confirmation on a Persona 4 remake soon, and hopefully, maxing the Social Links is less of a chore.