Of the many gameplay additions thatPersona 5 Royalbrought to the series, its implementation of bedroom customization tapped into a concept with a lot of potential, but felt half-finished. In a series with such a refined aesthetic, giving players new mechanics and customization options without compromising that aesthetic is challenging. When done right, though, it allows players the chance to find their own style and make theirPersonaexperience more personal while keeping the game beautiful and fun.
WhatPersona 5 Royalgets so right with its bedroom customization feature, is that it enables character customization opportunities that reinforce the narrative. Obtaining gifts and items while exploring Confidant stories, venturing into lesser-traveled areas of town, or uncovering secrets all helps create a more personalized gameplay experience. The feature as it stands doesn’t allow complete or thorough customization, nor an easy way to share it with friends or the fan community, but the groundwork has been laid, andPersona 6and other sequels should take full advantage of it.
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Persona 5 Royal’s Bedroom Decoration Mechanics
The bedroom decoration system inPersona 5 Royalessentially allows players to place items on the walls, shelf, desk, and certain parts of the floor. The items are obtained primarily through deepening bonds with Confidants, with some requiring the player to reach certain bond levels or hang out inspecificPersona 5 Royalhangout spotsat particular times of year. Certain items are also found via the arcade in Akihabara, where the player can unlock typical crane game prizes to take home as decorations. The items obtained are purely cosmetic and can be placed in limited areas of the bedroom, accumulating over time to fill out the space and providing a completion challenge for those willing to hunt for rarer decorations.
As it stands, the decoration system works just fine. Players can move items as they see fit, and the items are fun and varied without becoming a nuisance or eyesore. The increasing fullness of the bedroom as the player finds more decorations results from the players investing themselves in the world and its characters. The items obtained reinforce the players' connection tothe thieving found family inPersona 5’s charactersand love for their new home.
What holds the decoration system back though, is primarily its limited scope. While there are a good variety of items, they serve more like collectibles than true decorations for the player to mix and match. The major furniture in the room cannot be moved or replaced at all either. It all adds up to create the start of a potentially diverse sandbox of customization that rewards players for thoroughly exploring theirConfidant stories andPersona 5 Royal’s side content, but instead it feels more like a trophy room by a different name.
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How Persona 6 Could Take Bedroom Decorations Even Further
The first set of bedroom options that would be awelcome addition inPersona 6are full floor and wallpaper customization. While the player can put items on their floor and on their walls inPersona 5 Royal, the actual color and design of the walls and floor are unchangeable. Some of the decorations available completely clash with the musty attic bedroom ofPersona 5 Royal, and it limits players abilities to make rooms that fit their own personal aesthetic.
The bedroom is a critical place forinitiating Phantom Thieves meetings, dates, and a great deal of side content. It makes sense that accommodating a wide variety of potential layouts and color schemes could make things complicated from a development perspective, but thePersonaseries has made a name for itself through its attention to detail and style. Giving players the chance to explore that style on a deeper and more personalized level would be well worth the development work.
It hardly makes sense that after the player is done exploring such an intricate world, with so many ways to spend each day, that they come home to a room that hardly feels like their own. The ability to customize the walls and floor would exponentially increase the number of potential room combinations for players to choose from.Players in thePersona 5 Royalfandomare especially creative, and the chance to explore style and fashion through deep bedroom customization feels like a no-brainer for a series that has already turned little things like menu navigation into a visual spectacle.
Personaplayers can choose costumesto wear during combat, but another way that bedroom customization could be enhanced, would be through allowing players to change outfits in their bedroom. While this may seem somewhat unrelated to bedroom customization at face value, the key is actually in bringing a shareability to player’s custom bedrooms.
If the player cannot change their outfit, showing off customized bedrooms would be far less satisfying, as the player’s outfit could conflict with the look of the room. Omitting the player from shared images is an option, but an even better choice would be to enable the player to change outfits to fit their bedroom to improve the shareability of players' hard work. Rewarding players for taking the time to create not just a room they are proud of, but an outfit that suits the scene would be an incredible asset forfuture games in thePersonaseries.
Phoning in social media elements into a game can be detrimental to the experience, but plenty of games find success through encouraging players to share and engage with the creativity of other players. One example of a game like this isAnimal Crossing: New Horizons, where even now players use sites like Twitter to show off their creations. For a series already well known for its incredible fan art and community, allowing players to show off their hard work on their bedrooms would likely give future games a new kind of social longevity.
Persona 5 Royalhas laid a lot of groundwork, and has showcased how even limited customization options can excite completionists and casual fans alike. Especially because players will have to work hard to find all the bedroom decorations they want, including diving deeper into side stories and Confidants, the whole system creates a personalized player experience while rewarding exploration. With any luck, by the time ofPersona 6’s announcement, an expansion of the bedroom customization feature will be well underway.
Persona 5 Royalis available on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
