Revamping Persona 6's Velvet Room Confidant System

To set Persona 6 apart from its predecessors, it could be worthwhile to revamp the traditional Social Link system with the Velvet Room attendants. While having a Social Link with these characters is an expected element of the Persona games, it may be time to break away from the repetitive trend that has been established in past games. However, this will require some creative thinking and fresh ideas to implement successfully.

The Velvet Room, with its mysterious host Igor and his assistants, is a beloved and iconic aspect of the Persona franchise. While its appearance may change in each game, its crucial role in fusing and summoning Personas remains constant. Additionally, the Velvet Room attendants have also served as Social Links in recent games, providing players with unique advantages.

Persona 6's Velvet Room Social Link Should Bring Something New to the Table

The Velvet Room attendants have become a staple Social Link in the Persona games, but their role has unfortunately become repetitive. In Persona 4 and Persona 5, players were required to fuse a specific Persona with a certain skill in order to level up the Social Link. While having a unique approach is not necessarily a bad idea, this design proved to be more complicated in practice. Players often needed a guide to figure out the correct fusion, adding another layer of complexity to the game.

Persona 3's Velvet Room attendant, Elizabeth, offers a viable alternative to this approach. Elizabeth provided players with a list of tasks to complete in order to earn rewards, some of which included the fusions that would later become the basis of future Velvet Room Social Links. Persona 4's Mysterious Fox Social Link also took a similar mission-based approach, where players had to complete tasks to fulfill wishes written on emas at the Inaba Shrine. With these examples, Persona 6's Velvet Room Social Link could benefit from a similar approach that focuses on completing missions rather than relying on fusion.

One possible solution to the situation would be to have the Velvet Room attendant in Persona 6 take on a more human form, similar to characters like Teddie in Persona 4. By disguising themselves as a classmate or local, the attendant could interact with the player like any other character, allowing for a more natural progression of the Social Link. While this approach may not be groundbreaking, it would certainly be a new take on the traditional Velvet Room Social Link. In order to keep things fresh and avoid falling into the same formulaic traps as previous titles, Persona 6 could benefit from embracing this new angle and focusing on character development rather than simply providing another list of fusions for the player to perform.

Persona 6 is in development.