Persona 3 Portable: Maya (Hermit) social link choices guide

by Alex Donaldson on 18 January, 2023

One of the most memorable of the S-Links in Persona 3, the Hermit Arcana friendship is struck up with an Online Game player. This link is exclusive to the male Protagonist in Persona 3 Portable, and forms the Maya social link.

The online game social link with Maya is unique in that it all takes place through a computer - as so many relationships do these days! Persona 3 was ahead of the curve. As ever, ranking it up reveals more of this story - including teasing out Maya’s real identity - and also grants you bonuses when doing Persona Fusion with those of the Hermit Arcana. This guide will help you to max out the Hermit S-Link quickly and efficiently.

Online Game ‘Maya’ S-Link Guide - Hermit

The memorable Maya Social Link though the online game represents the Hermit Arcana; here's how to rank up fast.

A real classic time capsule of the time when Persona 3 was developed and localized, the online game friendship you strike up as part of the Maya social link features some real vintage era internet speak - and teases out a mystery as it dawns that this online friend, Maya, might be somebody closer to you than you realize…

For Persona 3 Reload players, you're not quite in the right place! This guide is optimized for Persona 3 Portable & FES. For Reload, visit our P3 Reload Maya guide instead.

As with all other links in the game, the Maya S-Link naturally increases any time you spend time together by logging on to the game. However, saying the right things on certain dialogue options grants bonus experience which will make your S-Link rank up more quickly. This guide lists all those choices, so you can always pick the best dialogue option. Any dialogue options not listed in this guide don’t matter, so you can say whatever you like. If our points don’t match up to what you get, make sure that every time you sit down to play Innocent Sin with Maya you have a Hermit Persona in your current stock.

You can hang out with the Online Game Hermit Social Link with Maya via the computer in your room in the dorms on any Sunday, plus during school holidays.
If you’re playing as the Female Protagonist, for Hermit you’ll instead be getting to know the Saori Hasegawa social link, which is detailed alongside all other S-Links in our Persona 3 Portable Social Link guide.

Unlock & Rank 1:

In order to unlock the online game friendship that turns into the Maya social link, you’ll need to play through the storyline of Persona 3 as the male protagonist until the internet connection is restored to your home at Iwatodai Dormitory. You’ll also need Junpei to give you a copy of Innocent Sin, an old MMORPG and a classic Persona reference.

At this point, you can access this social link via the laptop in the protagonist’s bedroom - but only on Sundays and school holidays.

For the first rank, whatever dialogue options you choose, this first rank of the Maya social link proceeds as normal, so say whatever you prefer.