Some Persona 5 deleted content with a somewhat odd storyline has recently been discovered. The cut content refers to an unused quest internally titled as “quest31” which carries an anti-piracy message in a somewhat hammy fashion. quest31 sees the Phantom Thieves heading up against an unnamed adversary who has been discovered pirating a number of video games, and the heroes are out to take him down.
A user on ResetEra discovered the Persona 5 deleted content on The Cutting Room Floor, a wiki and website that is dedicated to cataloging and preserving cut content from video games. The Cutting Room Floor has a large amount of unused dialogue from the game of which quest31 only forms a small portion. quest31 is one of twenty unused Mementos Requests discovered by data miners.
Here are two portions of the dialogue from the quest in question:
MSG_015_0_0
Shut up! It’s not my fault!
It’s those money grabbing
game companies! Blame them!
Games are too expensive,
and my allowance isn’t enough…
And who cares if I download them?
Maybe I play it for free, but
if it’s a good game, I recommend
it. I’m giving back, aren’t I?
————————————-
MSG_016_0_0
He has zero remorse.
I can’t let this go.
I’ll use a special attack on him!
A special attack on behalf of all
the creative types in the world.
[…]
MSG_024_0_0
I won’t do it again!
It was uncool of me to brag
about it to my friends, too.
Before I knew it, illegally
downloading games became the
biggest priority in my life…
————————————-
MSG_025_0_0
Just erase all the games
you pirated already. Make
sure you tell your friends, too.
————————————-
MSG_026_0_0
…OK. I’ll save up my allowance
and actually pay for games from
now on…
————————————-
MSG_027_0_0
The Phantom Thieves forgive
you. On behalf of all the
creative types in the world.
The reason for the existence of the Persona 5 deleted content isn’t entirely clear. Some developers include anti-piracy messages just for the sake of it. However, it may also have been intended as special content that only activates when the game has been pirated; other developers have enacted similarly-weird bonus content in their games.
You can read the full text of quest31 over at The Cutting Room Floor along with other cut content from Persona 5 and other video games.
