Persona 5’s Hardest Difficulty is Locked…Behind Free DLC!

Persona 5 launched with four different difficulties: Safety, Easy, Normal, and Hard. Now with the new free DLC that released alongside the worldwide launch, they’ve added the hardest difficulty mode in the game, free of cost. Known as “Merciless”, the description for the pack on the PlayStation Store reads:

“A special present as thanks for playing Persona 5! Not for the faint of heart, these severe battles on the ‘Merciless’ difficulty will require cunning and an iron will.”

How hard is Merciless mode? From the looks of things, it’s pretty unforgiving. GameFaqs user Thelantyr1216 has broken down the difficulty modifiers as follows:

Safety Mode:

• Damage received: x0.5
• Damage dealt: x2.0
• Experience: x3.0
• Money: x5.0

Easy Mode:

• Damage received: x0.5
• Damage dealt: x1.0
• Experience: x1.0
• Money: x1.0

Normal Mode:

• Damage received: x1.0
• Damage dealt: x1.0
• Experience: x1.0
• Money: x1.0

Hard Mode:

• Damage received: x1.6
• Damage dealt: x0.8
• Experience: x1.0
• Money: x1.0

Merciless Mode:

• Damage received: x1.6
• Damage dealt: x0.8
• Experience: x0.4
• Money: x0.4
• Critical and technical hit damage on both enemies and allies is tripled.

To summarize, combat in Merciless mode will take a lot longer than normal, with the potential for enemies to land critical hits on you and your team much more often — but so can your allies.

How does it play?

In my roughly 2-3 hours of playing on this difficulty setting — skipping cutscenes and getting straight to the first dungeon — my major takeaway from this mode is that item management day-to-day will be a lot more difficult, considering how little money you’ll actually be earning from battles. So you’ll have to carefully plan what you’ll be taking with you at all times.

Considering experience points are heavily cut back in this mode as well, you’ll also need to grind a ton — especially if you plan on surviving the boss battles, which is also very tricky considering you also need to watch your money.

My advice for anyone looking to play this mode, would be to save it for a second run, simply so you can plan ahead and have a better idea of what you should be spending your money on.

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To pick up the DLC that unlocks this mode, simply visit the official PlayStation store page for it and download it now!

Will you attempt a play-through on the Merciless difficulty setting? Let us know in the comments below and stay tuned to GameSkinny for all your Persona needs!