Persona 3 Reload will be coming only to the Nintendo Switch 2 on October 23, but Atlus’s P-Studio originally intended to port it to both Switch systems. According to the developers, they gave up on these plans because they wanted to put Persona 3 Reload on Nintendo hardware as soon as possible, but working on both versions simultaneously would have delayed the planned release dates by a year.
In an interview with 4Gamer, Persona series general producer Kazuhisa Wada discussed the challenges P-Studio experienced when testing Persona 3 Reload on the original Nintendo Switch. A lot of the issues boiled down to performance, as getting the game to look good and run smoothly on the older console would have required a complete overhaul of the UI and art. This would mean a longer development cycle, which the developers didn’t want.
Once the Switch 2 was announced, however, the team decided to get a dev kit as quickly as possible and start working on a port, wanting to leave as short a gap as possible between the release of Persona 3 Reload’s other versions. Development of the Switch 2 edition went smoothly, allowing the release date to be moved up from the New Year season to October 23, 2025.
For the Switch 2 specifically, Wada and his team wanted the game to be playable in handheld and docked mode with no discernible differences in graphics and performance. Game director, producer, and Persona 3 lyricist Shigeo Komori adds that since many Switch players like to switch between the two modes, making sure the transition looked seamless and that neither mode got labelled as “inferior” were the most challenging parts of the process.
Persona 3 Reload is available for PS5/PS4, Xbox One,/Xbox Series X|S, and PC (Steam). The Nintendo Switch 2 edition is set to release on October 23, 2025.
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