| Digimon Story: Time Stranger | ||||
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| Release Date | Gameplay & Story | DLC & Pre-Order | Demo Review | Full Review |
Everything We Know About Digimon Story: Time Stranger
Digimon Story: Time Stranger Plot
Players begin by choosing between protagonists Dan or Kanan Yuki, both agents of the secret organization ADAMAS tasked with investigating anomalies in Tokyo. While on assignment in a quarantined Shinjuku district, the chosen character encounters a Digimon and is suddenly caught in an explosion that transports them eight years into the past. The unchosen Yuki twin becomes their operator who guides the player from ADAMAS headquarters throughout the mission.
Reeling from the temporal displacement, the protagonist embarks on a harrowing quest to uncover the cause behind an impending global collapse. Their journey oscillates between two realms: modern-day Tokyo, particularly Shinjuku and Akihabara, and the Digital World of Iliad. Along the way, the protagonist navigates complex relationships and conflicts that arise from the intersecting themes of past vs. future, human vs. Digimon, and the duality of both worlds.
Digimon Story: Time Stranger Gameplay
Digimon Story Time Stranger is a monster-taming RPG. Players traverse both the human and the Digital World, specifically the Iliad server, and encounter hostile Digimon in diverse environments, including hubs where Digimon live ordinary lives. Much like previous games in the series, wild Digimon encountered in the field have a "scan rate": defeating or encountering them repeatedly increases this percentage, and at 100%, you can recruit them; recruiting at 200% grants stat and level-cap bonuses.
During combat, players bring three Digimon into active battle, with a fourth slot reserved for a guest party member, plus three more in reserve that level up passively. The classic Data-Vaccine-Virus rock-paper-scissor type matchup remains, layered with elemental affinities and status mechanics discovered through trial and error. Battles include options such as targeting specific body parts on bosses and applying buffs to active party units, though buffs don’t carry over to reserves. Players can also adjust combat speed up to 5x.
Moreover, each Digimon has innate "special" skills, and players can purchase additional "attachment" abilities in shops. Equippable items, stat enhancements, and level thresholds support branching evolutions that can be chosen via a column interface. With over 450 Digimon to train—surpassing the combined roster of Cyber Sleuth and Hacker’s Memory—Time Stranger offers the largest Digimon selection in the series. The player inventory caps at a generous 999 Digimon, all of which gain experience, albeit at a reduced rate if not in active use.
Digimon Story: Time Stranger Release Date
Releases This October 3, 2025 at 3:00 A.M. PT / 6:00 A.M. ET on Steam | Midnight Local Time on Consoles
Digimon Story Time Stranger will launch this October 3, 2025 for PC (via Steam), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. According to its SteamDB page, the game will launch at 3:00 A.M. PT / 6:00 A.M. ET on Steam. On consoles, though, the game is expected to release at midnight local time.
Digimon Story: Time Stranger Review (Demo)
Pokémon Better Watch Out
I’ve been patiently waiting for another Digimon game ever since I finished Digimon Survive back in 2022. Impatiently, actually, because that game only made me want more. Like a glutton, I’ve consumed nearly every entry the franchise has put out, even the ones, I’m sorry to say, better left in the trash. I endured Digimon World 4, had a fun time with Digimon Racing, and even sunk more hours than I’d like to admit into the now-defunct gacha Digimon ReArise. My appetite for Digimon content has never really slowed down, and every year between releases only makes the craving worse. But Digimon Story: Time Stranger is finally almost here!
Originally announced back in 2017, Digimon Story: Time Stranger sat in development for a long time. Then-producer Kazumasa Habu admitted early on that the game would take a while since it was being built from scratch for newer hardware. This led to us fans getting Hacker's Memory and Survive to keep us occupied. Over the years, its development endured delays and changes in leadership. Habu stepped away in 2023, though the project continued under a new team. So, when its first trailer finally dropped during the February 2025 PlayStation State of Play after years and years of waiting, believe you me, I was losing my mind. Not only did it tease the game’s story, it also showed the Story sub-series’ first official English dub.
After sizing up the demo and exhausting the small amount of content available here, I can confidently say that Digimon has finally released a game that will give Pokémon a run for their money.
Demo Shows the Shape of Things to Come
Digimon Story: Time Stranger has always leaned heavier on, if it's not obvious enough, story compared to its World counterparts. If you’re new to the distinction: Digimon Story games are narrative-driven JRPGs, while Digimon World is where you get the more tamagotchi-like monster raising. Here, you’re a secret agent with a job, working under ADAMAS, an organization tasked with investigating strange phenomena. You get to choose whether your character is male or female, though it’s not a decision you need to stress about; you can adjust your look later. Whoever you don’t choose becomes your Operator or guide.
You follow a distress signal to its source, where you find Inori Misono. She recognizes you, but neither you nor your Operator have any record of her. In fact, many people and Digimon you encounter claim you look familiar. In a story about time travel, this is just the beginning of the trouble ahead.
Things escalate quickly. Omnimon fights Metal Greymon. Massive entities arrive from the sky, ripping a city apart. Your character is suddenly pulled into the Digital World, and immediately pulled back to the real world after halting a shadowy figure from stealing a Digi-Egg that clearly matters a lot more than the player is privy to knowing at the moment. The game plays it close to the chest here. You’re left with more questions than answers, which feels apt for a demo.
You do, however, know the real world and the Digital World of Iliad are both under threat, you know something big is dying out across the land, and you know Aegiomon, and her human partner Inori Misono, are somehow right in the middle of it.
Despite this, Aegiomon doesn’t actually show up in the demo outside of the Adventure Trial mode—more on this later. It appears that you’ll be meeting him much later on. Based on the marketing and available information, he and Inori are essentially the heart of the story. The demo instead sets up your role as more of an outsider looking in.
The protagonist you control is a blank slate, just like past Digimon Story entries. In a sense, you’re not the main character; you’re presumably doing all the work, though, guiding the real leads through the Digital World’s crisis. That may disappoint some players hoping for a more personal arc, but it’s not out of line with the series’ track record. Digimon World: DS (a Digimon Story game, despite its title) did the same thing, and so did both Cyber Sleuth games. Your avatar is more of a lens than a fully realized character.
Personally, I would’ve liked the player character to have character development. I get why the developers keep them blank; it’s easier to drop any player into the role. However, it sometimes makes the story feel like it’s happening around you rather than with you. Still, there’s enough interesting things going on here to keep me hooked.
What especially has me paying attention is where Aegiomon’s arc seems headed. Although we don’t actually meet him in the demo, we do know that he eventually evolves into Jupitermon, one of the Olympos XII of the Digital World, whose arms look similar to one of the towering beings in the game’s opening. It’s hard not to get a little excited about the idea of playing alongside a Digimon whose story feels that consequential.
By the time I finished the demo, I didn’t walk away with a clear picture of where the narrative is going, but it did get me excited for what’s to come. We’ll just have to wait until October 3 to see the rest, but for now, the premise looks like it could push the series into more ambitious territory.
Combat is More of the Same, Just Better
When you first jump into Digimon Story: Time Stranger, the demo wastes no time setting up the rules of its battles. Like other Digimon Story games before it, the combat system is turn-based and revolves around a type triangle: Data, Vaccine, and Virus. Each one has a natural advantage over another—Data beats Vaccine, Vaccine beats Virus, Virus beats Data. Layered on top of that are elemental strengths and weaknesses, which add a second axis to think about when building your team or picking your moves. Not only are you choosing which Digimon to attack with, but whether the attack itself will cut deep or barely scratch.
The fights here are flexible. Like before, you can swap Digimon or use items whenever you need to, and unlike Pokémon, it doesn’t cost you a turn. That might sound like it makes things easier, but it actually frees the developers to make enemies a little more aggressive, especially on harder difficulties. If your Digimon goes down, you can immediately pull in someone from your reserve team, so long as you have backups ready. Once the whole roster is down, that’s game over, though, but until then, you’re encouraged to keep experimenting with lineups rather than clinging desperately to one or two favorites.
Enemies now roam the field, which is a nice touch, considering how unfun and too frequent random encounters can be in previous games. Sneaking up on Digimon in the field for a preemptive strike can tilt the odds dramatically in your favor. Sometimes, you get to deal damage to enemies before the battle starts, other times you might end the fight outright before the enemy even has a chance to retaliate.
If past Digimon Story games are any indication, expect to do a lot of grinding. That's the nature of most JRPGs, after all. Fortunately, you can fast forward or use auto-battle to make encounters quick. Just don't expect the same on harder difficulties, where enemies hit harder and turn into damage sponges.
Digivolve Into...
Outside of combat, Time Stranger leans on systems from previous Digimon Story games. Each battle raises a Scan Rate for the Digimon you’re fighting. At 100%, you can convert them into allies, but if you wait until 200%, you’ll end up with a stronger version.
But team building doesn’t stop at simply collecting Digimon. You can equip them with Attachment Skills, which let them access abilities they wouldn’t normally learn, and of course, Digivolution and De-Digivolution are present. Meeting certain requirements unlocks new forms, but you can also roll back into earlier stages if you want to shift stats or move down a different evolutionary path.
Personalities also come into play here; depending on how you interact with your Digimon, their personalities change, which affects how their stats grow as they level. This is what I love most about Digimon. There is a lot of room for customization. It lets you mold a Digimon into the version you actually want instead of being locked to a single progression path.
I love Digimon, but I’ve got to admit, I was a little disappointed with the starters offered in this new entry. In Cyber Sleuth and Hacker’s Memory, the choices were unique; you had options like Tentomon, Terriermon, and even Betamon. Here, however, you’re picking from Patamon, Gomamon, or DemiDevimon. Although I like all three, Patamon and DemiDevimon were already options in Digimon World 2, another turn-based Digimon RPG. It feels a bit like a repeat.
I ultimately went with Patamon. It was a nostalgic choice, really, since MagnaAngemon was an absolute lifesaver for me in Digimon World 2, and Seraphimon looks awesome. The good news is that, like in all the other Digimon Story games, this decision doesn’t matter much. You can always encounter the other starters later or get them through Digivolution and De-Digivolution, so the initial choice is just about who you want to start your journey with.
Central Town is Already in the Center of My Heart
After wrapping up the demo’s main story slice, you’re given the chance to dip into the Adventure Trial mode, which acts like a side preview of what the game might feel like later on. It drops you into a part of Central Town, one of the game’s hub areas. From the way things are laid out, this clearly takes place a little later in the story. You’re already traveling with Aegiomon, and the temporary Digimon the demo gives you can already reach Champion form. None of the progress you make here carries over into the final release, but I didn’t really mind.
Walking around Central Town made me feel like I’d stepped into one of those cities from the anime, the kind the main cast always stumbles into halfway through a season. Digimon fly across the sky, chatter among themselves, and even run their own market stalls. There’s a bar tucked away too, for good measure.
I caught myself slowing down just to watch small details play out, like Tankmon and Tankdramon seemingly arguing in the corner, Kotemons training in a plaza, or Sukamon and Chuumon conversing near trash cans. The whole place has this lived-in, rough-around-the-edges atmosphere, like a shantytown pieced together by Digimon who needed somewhere to go. It’s not pristine or overly designed; it’s messy but far more imaginative than the Digital Spaces of previous games, which are often single-colored.
A major contributor to the game's atmosphere is the characters themselves. This marks the first time a Digimon Story game has featured English voice acting for its entire cast, from the humans to the Digimon, both during gameplay and in cutscenes. A lot of these voices, though, sound too similar. Patamon, for instance, shares a vocal timbre with more than a few rookies and in-training Digimon, which sometimes breaks the immersion.
This is a minor complaint; having any voice acting at all is a huge improvement over older games where your partners either grunted or were completely silent.
If there is one part of the demo that left me underwhelmed, it’s the music. The soundtrack, at least in the demo, hasn’t wowed me. Regular battle tracks are just serviceable, and even the supposed big set-piece boss fights landed with a thud rather than a crescendo.
Maybe my perspective is skewed because I’m coming straight off Tomoki Miyoshi’s score for Digimon Survive, which was overflowing with leitmotifs and mood-setting pieces. Compared to that, Time Stranger’s compositions so far feel a little thin. I'm really hoping that Masafumi Takada, the game's composer, changes my mind in the full release, especially since the trailer's soundtrack sounds great, and I'd love to hear more of that.
Strange Times Ahead
Despite the grievances I’ve brought up, I walked away from this demo more excited than I expected. In fact, Digimon Story: Time Stranger is easily my most anticipated release this October, sitting higher on my list than Tales of Xillia Remastered, Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake, or even Pokémon Legends: Z-A. Part of that is pure bias, but part of it is also because Time Stranger feels like it’s finally pushing the series forward rather than circling back to the same well-worn nostalgia.
For the better part of a decade, Digimon games have leaned heavily on Adventure-era memories to keep the brand alive, while new ideas have been left to wither. Time Stranger is the first new Digimon Story game in ten years, and in that gap, expectations have ballooned.
The demo, in my opinion, fully delivers on its promise. If the full game builds on this foundation, Time Stranger could finally be the modern RPG that not only satisfies fans and newcomers but also makes Pokémon look over its shoulder.
Game8 Reviews
Digimon Story: Time Stranger Similar Games
Digimon Story: Time Stranger Product Information
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| Title | DIGIMON STORY: TIME STRANGER |
|---|---|
| Release Date | October 3, 2025 |
| Developer | Media.Vision Inc. |
| Publisher | Bandai Namco Entertainment |
| Supported Platforms | PC (via Steam) PlayStation 5 Xbox Series X|S |
| Genre | Monster-Taming, JRPG |
| Number of Players | 1 |
| ESRB Rating | ESRB Teen IMDA 16 |
| Official Website | Digimon Story: Time Stranger Official Website |
