Earlier today, Atlus announced on their website for Persona 4 Arena Ultimax that the North and South American releases of the game will not be region locked. While this news is appreciated, it’s appreciable because the first iteration of the game, Persona 4: Arena, was one of a small number of region locked games on PS3. This was a move that sparked much ire especially from European gamers, who received their release of the game under publisher Zen United and several months after North American gamers had received their copy of the game. The concepts of timely releases and maintaining fan hype are especially important for fighting games; the absence of properly handled releases threaten the development of scenes.
In any case, it seems that European gamers who are unwilling to wait for a European release will be able to import the games without worry of playability. It’s worth noting that there is currently no official news on a European release, though a release may be possible. The Persona Europe Facebook page has made posts for Persona 4 Arena Ultimax among other games recently, and shared an image last September saying “More info soon!” but of course what was meant by that can’t be known for certain.
In that same news posting today Atlus also revealed the preorder bonuses for the game and the spread is thus: a Teddie bop bag, the first of two sets of Persona Tarot cards (the other set to be included with the release of Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth), and the Tohru Adachi DLC pack that unlocks both the character and an accompanying story mode episode. These goodies will also be available to first-run copies of the game
Persona 4 Arena Ultimax releases on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 in Japan on August 28 and in North America on September 30.
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