Predictions For The Heaven Burns Red x Persona 5 The Royal Collab
Persona 5 and Heaven Burns Red are both among my favorite games ever together with things like Napple Tale, Tenerezza, Wing Commander IV, Hundred Swords, or Mugen no Frontier.
Asalam aleikoum how's it going. So the Persona 5 The Royal collab in Heaven Burns Red is set to be fully revealed with a special live stream on May 14. Persona 5 is one of my favorite games of the 2010s with Resonance of Fate, Rune Factory Oceans, Pandora no Tou, and a few other things. And Heaven Burns Red is one of my favorite games of the 2020s. So I'm slightly excited for this and started making all kind of theories on the collab.
✦✧・゚✧✦━━━━━✦✧・゚✧✦
— ヘブンバーンズレッド公式 (@heavenburnsred) May 10, 2026
ヘブバン
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ペルソナ5 ザ・ロイヤル
✦✧・゚✧✦━━━━━✦✧・゚✧✦
5月22日(金)11:00よりコラボ開催決定!
\さらに/
5月14日(木)20:00よりコラボ情報解禁生放送✨https://t.co/zbCTEjN0Ak#ヘブバン に、心の怪盗団、参上。 pic.twitter.com/TZvPK7uGuL
Trying to guess how the collab's story will play out
They already mentioned the scenario will be written by Key/Visual Arts/Hebuban scenarists, supervised by Atlus.
The first Angel Beats collab had the Heaven Burns Red characters appear in the Angel Beats school, and then teleport and hang out on the Hebuban base for a bit. The second and third Angel Beats collab took place entirely in the AB school.
Lastly, the PawaPuro collab had the PawaPuro characters getting summoned in Hebuban's world.
So for the Persona 5 collab it could go either way. Personally I'm hoping it'll be a mix of both just like with the first Angel Beats collab. If the collab takes place entirely in the P5R world, it's likely that only the 31A chara will appear there. In other words, we won't get to see Nanamin or some other Hebuban characters interact with the P5 cast.
Meanwhile, if the collab takes place entirely in the Heaven Burns Red world, it means that only the female P5R cast will get some major screentime. Because the Hebuban military base is female soldiers only. Though maybe they can make it so the P5 male characters wait for the others in the Palace they'll have to explore or something, and only appear there.
Most basic boring level 1 idea for a scenario would be: they introduce some OG bad guy, maybe someone influential from the military or someone influential in a Dome, like some mafia or whatever. And they make people suffer and they have a Palace. And the phantoms thieves will have to clear it to get back to their world or something. I hope they do something a bit more interesting than this. I could try to think of something interesting myself but I don't have the time lol.

Interactions with the Persona 5 main cast
Heaven Burns Red is the type of sociage that only features female playable characters, but it's not a game marketed for what I call "purity otaku". The type of otaku who gets mad when their favorite female/male character ever interacts with a male/female character. Usually I'd go on a huge tangent here but I wanna keep this short. I'm just gonna say that personally, most of the time, I have little interest in works specifically geared towards "purity otaku". And thankfully Hebuban isn't like that and there are several male characters appearing thorough the story. So I hope they won't be scared to make Joker Morgana Ryuji Yusuke Goro get some screentime.
I'm really looking forward to the interactions between the characters too. Some character interactions are bound to be hilarious: All the smart characters like Yukki, Higumin, in Hebuban, Makoto, Futaba, and Goro in P5R, and how they'll have to tsukkomi the dumbos. Futaba realizing Tama only knows about 2000s JP internet slang and teaching her about the newer memes, etc.
Collab dungeon
If there is indeed a Palace to explore, I hope they do a really cool and good 3D explorable dungeon with various gimmicks, with the same stealth and preemptive strike mechanics as in P5 etc.
Maybe the current Heaven Burns Red game design team can manage to make something almost as good as the dungeons in P5X. I haven't played it yet but the dungeons seem really cool with some actual puzzles and gimmicks.
Hopefully the p5X developers will never nerf their dungeons by listening to the type of players who hate using their brains and just want straight lines. Honkai Star Rail did that apparently so players can get rewards and pull the gacha ASAP instead of actually playing a game. Sad.
#ヘブバンペルソナ5ザロイヤルコラボ
— ヘブンバーンズレッド公式 (@heavenburnsred) May 11, 2026
情報解禁生放送まであと【3日】
5/14(木)20時〜生放送!
▼視聴https://t.co/zbCTEjNypS
対象投稿のRP&いいねが合計3万件達成で【S以上確定10連ガチャチケ】を全員に🎁
さらに抽選で1名にAmazonギフトコード🎁 pic.twitter.com/MPlYkqO9VZ
The Heaven Burns Red Twitter is doing a 3 days countdown till the stream, dropping a small tease each day. The first day, they revealed this screenshot: It's a Hebuban Cancer but in Mementos. I really hope this doesn't mean the only dungeon in the collab is Mementos and that it's a 2D linear dungeon...
Trying to guess the collab Styles / Memorias
I assume there will be three collab Styles just like with the PawaPuro collab, two SS Resonance Styles, and one S Style you get to max LB for free clearing/farming the event.
I hope Ruka isn't among the Styles, and I hope they don't always put Ruka for crossover collabs like these. For PawaPuro, it made sense since just like Ichigo, Ruka does like baseball, but yeah even if she's the protagonist I hope she takes a step back this time.

My first guess is obviously Isuzu. She got a new SS just a few months ago, but she doesn't have an SS Resonance yet. As a genius lock-picker she's bound to play a major role in the collab's story in some way. Unless it fully takes place in Shibuya/P5R world, with only the 31A chara appearing.
Isuzu is one of my most favorite 6 characters in the game (in no particular order: Maria, Saki, Isuzu, Ichiko, Inorin, Akarin) so I really hope she gets a lot of screentime. I want her to have a lockpicking showdown with Jooker and Morgana.


Another big contender is Irene since she's a detective. Just like with Isuzu, she got a new SS just recently. It was released in November 2025 with the special story event that completed a big overaraching arc. Either way I do like her a lot too so I hope she'll play a big part.




There are some characters who didn't get a new SS Style in 2+ years and don't have an SS Resonance Style yet too, like Shiki or Mikoto. So maybe they could get picked. Shiki especially would fit the phantom thief / Lupin the Third inspiration of Persona 5 really well.
Mikoto would fit too as she always wears her gas mask. For the same reason, Kiryu is bound to have some considerable screentime in the collab in some way since she wears her fox mask most of the time.
With the Pawapuro collab for example, Sahara chan getting an S Style was really unexpected, since she doesn't have anything to do with baseball. Turned out she was PawaPuro hardcore player. So they could make any kind of reason to make any character relevant.



Irocchi could fit pretty well too especially with the stylish aspect of Persona 5. I wouldn't consider her if it was a collab with another Persona game than 5.
Lastly, the PawaPuro collab didn't directly make any PawaPuro character playable, and instead paired them up with Ruka, Ichigo, Sahara chan. So I wonder if there will be actual playable P5R characters. Would be awesome if so.
They'd have to pick 1-2 of the female characters. Ann, Makoto, Futaba, Haru, or Kasumi. Would be really awesome if they actually made Makoto playable as a Rider like Nanamin but I'm not getting my hopes up. At best it'll be just like the PawaPuro collab, with the P5R characters playing a part in the animations and attacking together with the Hebuban character in the EX Skill's animation.

Thanks for watching / reading till the end. Please let me know in the comments if I missed something or got something wrong.
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