Persona 5 Royal: How to unlock the missable final Palace By Luke Albigés, 21 Oct 2022 FollowtopicsPersona 5 RoyalSEGAXbox Game PassXbox Cloud GamingGuideTurn BasedLuke Albigés Persona 5 Royal adds additional content (including a new Palace) past where the original game ends, but it's missable — around 80 hours into the game — so you'll need to know how to access it if you want the completion.Persona 5 originally ended at the close of the second semester, but for Persona 5 Royal, Atlus extended the game with a third semester that includes a ton of new content, including an additional dungeon (Palace, to use the in-game term) and new endings as a last surprise. However, this extra content is actually missable, and you'd need to do another full playthrough (or at least reload a very old save file) if you fail to meet the unlock criteria in time. Here, we'll explain exactly what you need to do to ensure you don't miss the additional content (and the related achievement for beating all Palaces) in as spoiler-free a manner as possible — you probably don't want to fall foul of missable content and achievements 80-odd hours into a game, right?Persona 5 Royal: How to unlock the third semesterIn order to extend the game beyond its original end point, there's only one condition you need to meet — raise your Social Link with the Councillor Confidant to Rank 9 before November 18th. They will no longer be available after this point, and the game will end 'early,' locking you out of the extra content. Fortunately, ranking up the Councillor Confidant offers some very useful perks, so you'll probably want to do this anyway, but just be mindful of this cut-off date and meet up when you can, and try to bring a persona of the Councillor type with you to progress quicker. Their identity:*** Spoiler - click to reveal ***The Coucillor Confidant is Dr. Maruki, Shujin Academy's part-time student counsellor and a new character added in Royal. There are no social stat requirements, so you can raise this Social Link whenever you like simply by visiting Maruki at the academy when he is available. Rank 10 will later be achieved automatically via story progression, and you'll be able to continue into the third semester.Persona 5 Royal: How to unlock the true endingIn addition to the above, a number of other conditions must be met to reach Persona 5 Royal's true ending. Two of these also relate to Confidants — you need to get the Justice Confidant to Rank 8 by around the same date as above (November 18th, you may actually have a little longer but best to play it safe) and the Faith Confidant to Rank 5 before December 18th. Once again, bringing personas of those types along when you meet up will speed things along a little. Then, just before and during the third semester, you must refuse all offers made by the antagonist. With all of that done, you should be on track for Persona 5 Royal's true ending. Confidant identities and a little more detail:*** Spoiler - click to reveal ***The Justice Confidant is Goro Akechi, and ranking up his Social Link is the trickiest part of this process as progress is gated at various stages by both social stats and time. You'll want to try and boost your Knowledge and Charm stats to level 3 as soon as possible, since you will barely be able to make progress with Akechi without. His last few tiers don't even unlock until early November so you don't have a lot of time to get them done, plus one requires you to boost Knowledge to 4 and the other is locked behind a challenging solo battle. Rank 9 is later achieved via story progression. The Faith Confidant is Kasumi Yoshizawa, another new character for Royal, and making progress with her is thankfully much easier, with no social stat requirements and a lower Rank cap to hit (this is extended once the third semester is underway). Finally, the four deals you must refuse come on November 20th, December 24th, January 9th, and February 2nd, with the second being the one that kicks off the third semester provided you've maxed out your Social Link with Maruki as detailed above.That's it! Hopefully this has been useful in saving you from reaching the 'end' of the game before realising that you need to start over to see the new Royal content and unlock the last of the Persona 5 Royal achievements — might be an idea to keep a bunch of save files, just in case anything goes wrong! It only just joined the service but Persona 5 Royal is already being hailed as one of the best Game Pass games, and if you're in the US, you could stand to win some great prizes just by unlocking achievements in the game thanks to our Persona 5 Royal Achievement Challenge, so sign up today!More Persona 5 Royal stories: Best Xbox RPGs to play in January 2025 Persona 6 could launch on Xbox on day one Persona 3 Reload almost snatches the Royal crown as series' most-played Xbox launch Persona 5 Tactica fails to grab Xbox players despite Game Pass debut Xbox Game Pass loses Persona 5 Royal and four more games soon Guide Written by Luke AlbigésLuke runs the TA news team, contributing where he can primarily with reviews and other long-form features — crafts he has honed across two decades of print and online gaming media experience, having worked with the likes of gamesTM, Eurogamer, Play, Retro Gamer, Edge, and many more. He loves all things Monster Hunter, enjoys a good D&D session, and has played way too much Destiny.