Digimon Story: Time Stranger is Kicking it Up to be Digimon’s Return to the Mainstream

Bandai Namco looks to go all in with the upcoming Time Stranger

Digimon has always been a franchise that’s never been afraid to experiment, both in anime and video game form.  While the Digimon World series was more well known in the 2000’s, especially the original Digimon World for PS1, Digimon’s second major video game subseries, Digimon Story, has slowly been rising to the spotlight.  What began as a game so niche they localized the first game as Digimon World DS to get more eyes on the game in the West is now shaping up to be one of the tentpole releases for developer Bandai Namco this year, not to mention one to watch out for any monster collecting turn based RPG fans in the vein of Shin Megami Tensei or Persona.

At the beginning of the month Bandai Namco hosted a Summer Showcase, and while big hitters like the new My Hero Academia: All’s Justice started the show, it was a deep dive into Digimon Story: Time Stranger with producer Ryosuke Hara that ended it. As Hara opens, it’s the first new entry in the Story subseries in 10 years, the last being Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth in 2015.  (Technically there’s also the interquel Cyber Sleuth – Hacker’s Memory in 2017 as well.)

Rather than recap everything from the video, we’ll just cover a few bullet points that stood out as things that show Bandai Namco is really putting all of their effort into this one.

• English voice acting.  It’s minor in the grand scheme of things, but considering Cyber Sleuth and Hacker’s Memory both lacked English voice acting this is a great step for accessibility.  Not to mention Digimon comes from a time when it was more common to change some terms from the original Japanese, so now we don’t have to worry about what a Jogress is.

• The bonds between Digimon and humans have always played an important role in the anime, and most seasons have a human paired with a single Digimon that Digivolves primarily based on the strength of their bond with their human partner.  The games can sometimes struggle to gamify that, and Cyber Sleuth especially, opting instead for a more SMT style of multiple monsters at our command at once. It appears that a large focus on Time Stranger’s story will be the bond between Inori Misono and Aegiomon, with Aegiomon regularly filling in as a guest 4th party member as well.  While Cyber Sleuth had Nokia Shiramine and her Agumon and Gabumon, and Hacker’s Memory had Erika Mishima and Wormmon, it seems Inori and Aegiomon will take center stage for the story this time around.

• The Digital World: Iliad.  Cyber Sleuth and Hacker’s Memory’s cyberspace environments all mostly took place within Cyberspace EDEN, a manmade virtual reality space with a lot of aesthetic vibes from the Internet from Digimon Adventure: Our War Game.  The Digital World itself was surprisingly absent, which was sad considering how unique its various incarnations across both anime and previous games have been.  Time Stranger is not only returning to the Digital World, but a new version of it on a new server run by the host computer Homeros.  (Previous Digital Worlds have been on the Yggdrasil host computer).  Not much is known about this version of the Digital World, as it’s only previous appearance was in Digimon Crusader, a Japan only mobile card game, but it does have a lot of Greek and Roman theming, with the Olympos XII guarding this version rather than the series mainstay Royal Knights.

• Multiple gameplay enhancements.  Not only are random encounters out in favor of enemy Digimon roaming the field so we can get an advantage on them, but we’ve also got an expansion on Digimon typing, adding more types and expanding out the basic triangle system that Data, Vaccine, and Virus operated on in previous games.  We can also do a lot of our Digimon management from the menu now, including Digivolving/DeDigivolving our Digimon.  Which is definitely a big point in convenience, even if I am sad at this meaning we’re most likely losing the Velvet Room analog, the Digilab, in the process.  There also appears to be a skill tree system, seemingly based off the crests from the original Adventure series, to add a little more depth as well.

• More in-depth boss encounters.  I’m currently in the process of replaying Cyber Sleuth, and most boss encounters have primarily revolved around constantly tossing out our Digimon’s strongest attacks, making sure they’re at the very least not at a type disadvantage, and at least for most of the early game, making sure they’re at the same or higher stage of Digivolution.  Time Stranger seems to be putting more emphasis on strategy, showing off an early game battle with Parrotmon.  Time will tell if all the bosses can maintain that level of strategy, but the fact that they’re making a point to try is a step in the right direction.

• And finally, Hara-san ends the presentation by saying that he will be starting with Patamon, my absolute favorite Digimon ever. The man has good taste.

Digimon Story: Time Stranger releases on October 3rd, 2025 for Playstation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Steam.  If you have any fondness at all for collecting and raising monsters and turn based combat, this is definitely one to keep an eye on.