Another day, another discovered cut scene from Persona 5 Royal. Datainer pan-hime is at it again, and this time, she's uncovered an unused scene featuring The Phantom Thieves hanging out at the Tokyo Skytree.
Pan-hime grabbed this scene from the Chinese build of Persona 5 Royal, and a video featuring an English translation was uploaded to YouTube by gamer Faz. The video can be seen below.
Note that although the in-game date in the video reads "5/16", that is just a placeholder. Given the scene's context, this event would've taken place on Sunday, August 21.
In this short scene, The Phantom Thieves are celebrating their successful infiltration of Futaba's palace. Ryuji begins by exclaiming how excited he is to be so high up in the air, though soon admits his own worries over the uncertainty of Medjed's threats to "cleanse" Japan. The other Thieves agree, each remarking that they haven't heard anything from or about Medjed yet. Makoto even checks her phone for a potential update, but there's nothing to be found.
Eventually, Ryuji decides that the group should forget about that while they're visiting Skytree, and asks Joker how he's feeling. Joker tells Ryuji that he's right, and the entire group agrees to stay and enjoy the evening.
Interestingly, unlike the other cut scenes pan-hime has discovered through datamining, this scene is fully voiced in Japanese. This implies that the scene was very close to making it into the final game. A number of fans who're familiar with the game's anime adaptation have also pointed out in the comments that this very scene occurs in Persona 5: The Animation during Episode 17 ("X-Day").
While Atlus has not disclosed the official reasons for cutting this scene, many fans have speculated that it's likely due to Futaba's palace deadline falling on the same day as the three-year anniversary of Wakaba Isshiki's (Futaba's mother) death. In the scene, Ryuji mentions that "Boss" (aka Sojiro) is the one who brought The Phantom Thieves tickets to Tokyo Skytree. This would be an unlikely action for Sojiro on the anniversary of Futaba's death.
Persona 5 Royal is available now, exclusively for the PlayStation 4.
Source: YouTube