Persona 3 Reload: Episode Aigis Ending, Explained

As an extended epilogue to Persona 3 Reload, Episode Aigis offers a somewhat more fleshed-out explanation of what happened at the end of the main game and wraps up the DLC’s own story. For those somewhat lost, here’s what happened in Episode Aigis’s ending.

Persona 3 Reload: Episode Aigis Ending, Explained

The entirety of Episode Aigis’s story is one large metaphor about how the cast, and people in general attempt to overcome the grief of a loved one. With the death of the protagonist after the defeat of Nyx, many of the cast have conflicting feelings about how to live without him. For Aigis, she seems content running away from her problems instead of facing them.

In the build-up to the game’s ending, each of the members of S.E.E.S receives a key that will allow them to do one of two things – either break the time loop they are in or go back in time to try and save the protagonist’s life. Unclear which option is right, they decide to fight one another and the winner will choose what to do with the key. Aigis, still unsure what to do, wins, and instead of choosing either option, she instead finds a third path, one where the party travels back to the moment the protagonist sacrificed himself to stop Nyx. By doing so, Aigis hopes that this will allow her to understand why he sacrificed himself to defeat Nyx. 

As was made evident in the base game, one can’t simply stop Nyx. Nyx is the embodiment of death and they’ll return no matter what. The party then learns that the protagonist didn’t sacrifice themselves to defeat Nyx, but to seal a being called Erebus, which calls out to Nyx to initiate the Fall. Erebus is the manifestation of humanity’s longing for death, with the creature made all the stronger by the party’s desire at multiple points throughout the campaign for death. Like with Nyx, Erebus can’t be killed, but the party is able to stop Erebus and ensure the protagonist’s sacrifice is not in vain.

With Erebus delayed and Aigis now content with the knowledge of why the protagonist gave their life, they return to the dorm and open the front door, ending the time loop. Instead of being greeted with April 1st, everyone is instead transported to the Velvet Room, where Igor, Elizabeth, and Metis are waiting for them. Igor congratulates Aigis for finding her reason to live and Metis reveals that she is the human half of Aigis. Following the protagonist’s death, Aigis subconsciously separated her human half in a desire to go back to the way things were when she was just a machine, feeling that her emotions only cause her pain. She realizes that this isn’t right and accepts Metis as her other self, allowing her to become whole again.

The party then wakes up on April 1st and sees Aigis, who is still asleep. This concerns everyone since she said in the Velvet Room that she was tired, much in the same way the protagonist was tired before his death. Fuuka performs a diagnostic test on Aigis and learns her systems are fried from assuming the power of the Fool arcana. However, Aigis quickly recovers and says that she wants to continue being with the party and decides to attend the next year of school with them. The members of S.E.E.S. then move out of the dorm as Aigis looks back on it, ready to begin the next chapter of her life. 

While some of the elements of Episode Aigis’s ending can be a bit confusing, the overall message behind it is a fairly optimistic one. Life is worth living and while society will never escape death, people can overcome their grief and find a new resolve in life. Again, some of the minor details are a bit murky, like Erebus’s reveal and how Aigis was even able to separate her emotional self, but it’s a life-affirming ending that puts a decent cap on the Persona 3 story.

And that’s the ending of Persona 3 Reload: Episode Aigis explained! Click here for more walkthroughs on the game!