I've seen a bit of complaining and cynicism over the upcoming release of Persona 5 Royal recently, and honestly, I can't get on board with it. Why? Because I'd much rather expanded, enhanced versions of games were done this way than via DLC.
Those of you who have been following me for a while will know that I'm becoming increasingly interested in the topic of game preservation, and a significant obstacle to that is the culture of "post-launch support" that has developed over the course of the latter half of last generation and all of this generation. To put it simply, if you buy a physical copy of a game today, in a significant number of cases, that disc becomes mostly worthless after a while thanks to the sheer volume of patches, additional content and DLC added after release.
Post-launch support is seen as a good thing by the broader gaming community today, with people praising companies like Capcom for adding in Bloody Palace mode to the new Devil May Cry, or Sony for adding a new "Survival Mode" and challenges to Days Gone. (In the latter case, this additional content was announced before the release of the game!) And in some respects, it's good to see companies wanting to make their game the best it possibly can be.
But… shouldn't that be done before launch? Particularly when we're talking about game modes that have been an established part of the series for a while now (Devil May Cry) or what essentially amounts to difficulty settings (Days Gone)? This may not seem relevant right now, but consider a few years down the line when the PS4 is a "retro" system. Will Sony's servers still be up and serving these patches and DLC? If not, you'll be stuck with a disc that doesn't contain the "full" game as people experienced it today.
In some cases, this is worse than others. Probably the most worthless physical edition out there right now is the original release of Final Fantasy XV, which has undergone such radical changes and additions since its original launch that it is almost unrecognisable. Not only that, but the version on the disc was buggy as shit, requiring a large Day One patch to even make the damn thing work properly in the first place. In this instance, the release of the later Royal Edition made perfect sense… though I've still held fire on that, since at the same time as announcing that, they also announced that there would be more DLC. Hopefully we'll get a proper "Ultimate Edition" at some point that includes absolutely everything.
And this is why I'm not mad at Persona 5 Royal. Everything I've heard about it suggests that it adds a significant amount to the base game, much as Persona 3 FES did for Persona 3, or Persona 4 The Golden did for Persona 4. That additional content hasn't been released piecemeal; it's all being provided in one big lump, and on a disc to boot. This means that said additional content won't be lost in the great digital void; it can be archived and preserved. And that's important.
If you don't want to support this model, that's absolutely fine. Persona 5 in its base form still exists, and looks like it may well be coming to Switch. Once Persona 5 Royal releases, OG Persona 5 will probably be pretty cheap, for PS4 at least. And it's still a great game. But for those who enjoyed it and want more, I'd much rather companies take the P5R approach than piecemeal DLC and Season Passes.
I realise I'm in the minority on this right now, but I think some people need to consider the bigger, more long-term picture.
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