Through the power of modding, playing Doom in Persona 5 Royal can be done through the in-game retro console. There’s even footage if you need proof.
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Doom in Persona 5 Royal
Besides being known as one of the oldest ancestors of first-person shooters, the original Doom from 1993 is now being unofficially ported, but not to consoles. Instead, people have been putting the OG demon slaying game on all manner of devices, from a Porsche to a Nintendo DS. There’s also an X (formerly Twitter) bot that lets you play the game by replying to the bot (but tragically, it’s been suspended), and even an entire subreddit dedicated to porting Doom to anything and everything.
I guess it shouldn’t be such a surprise, but now it’s possible to play Doom in Persona 5 Royal through a new PC mod. You can thank the mod’s creators, Xan1242 and KingJack, for what they’ve done, as well as @ScrambledFaz, an X user who regularly posts about the Persona series and other Atlus games, who uploaded footage of the mod at work.
Faz’s video shows them buying the new Doom shareware cartridge and the retro gaming system (the latter was already in the base game) from a local shop, with Morgana the feline Phantom Thief reacting to the purchase, saying Doom was a hit back in the nineties. He encourages the protagonist to return to their room and start playing it.
After the console is set up, the first episode of Doom can now be played (and only the first episode as this is the shareware version of the game), with the full version available for purchase after this version is beaten. Faz begins playing the game, running around and blasting holes through enemies that cross his path with the pistol and shotgun. They stop after finishing two levels, with Morgan complimenting them and their Guts stat increasing from playing the game (hey, Doom is a brutal and bloody game, so of course the Guts stat would increase).
In the video description, Faz states that the mod will go public sometime soon and provides links on where to download it.
What is Doom?
Compared to the newer FPS games we have today, Doom (1993) is a dinosaur, but that doesn’t diminish its importance in gaming history. Released by Id Software (the guys who also made Wolfenstein and Quake), Doom sold like hotcakes.
It’s an FPS where you play as Doomguy (the main character wasn’t given a name, so people called him that), who has to turn every demon in sight into a bloody corpse using various guns. This is because a demon invasion has begun after a military experiment involving teleportation goes south real fast. Oh, and it all takes place on Phobos, one of Mars’ moons (because why not?).
Id released a shareware version of Doom for free to promote the game, which contained the first episode and was made up of eight levels. It was basically a demo for the full version of Doom.
Since Doom was dropped, there were a bunch of “Doom clones” like Star Wars: Dark Forces and Duke Nukem that wanted to attract the attention of those who fell in love with Doomguy’s first outing and some of them were pretty good too (Hey, if it’s successful, why not plagiarize it?). There have also been a few sequels to the Doom series, with the most recent being the 2016 Doom game and Doom Eternal which somehow made things bloodier and more brutal (and that’s wonderful).
What is Persona 5 Royal?
The Persona RPG series is a spin-off of the Atlus’ Shin Megami Tensei series, with recent entries like Persona 3, 4, and 5 involving the main characters forging bonds with people representing various tarot arcana (the chariot, the hermit, the empress, etc.) and using various monsters (called Personas) to battle other monsters. It’s basically “the power of friendship” in RPG form.
Persona 5 Royal is an updated version of the original Persona 5 game from 2017. It overhauls certain elements and introduces new mechanics like Persona traits (passive abilities), as well as new Personas to capture, a new district to visit, and a new Palace (a dungeon that manifests the desires of a corrupt individual) to explore. There’s also Kasumi, a brand new party member who is also a gymnast, and Dr. Maruki, a counselor at the local high school. Both are brand new characters exclusive to Royal and play a major role in the new story that’s set during the new third semester of the game.
The main story involves the player character accused of assaulting someone, forcing them to enroll in a new school located in Tokyo. They soon discover they have access to a Persona, an entity that represents who the user truly is and acts as a mask for them to face the trials in their life. Along with some buddies with their own Personas, they form the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, who steal the treasures of corrupt adults (items of special value to them) by infiltrating their Palaces to change their personalities, resulting in them admitting their crimes. I know, it’s a lot to digest.
