You know that old saying about buses, “You wait ages for one bus, and then two come along at the same time,” it’s a similar scenario for Digimon games as well – before I lose you, I am going somewhere with this so stay with me. Back in July, Digimon Survive was released to fairly decent reviews, and the Digimon producers have now said that the monster-taming franchise has “multiple” new games in development.
Kazumasa Habu and Takahiro Yokota are the producers in question, and they have high hopes for the future of the franchise when it comes to video games. The long-running series has made a major resurgence in recent years, with the release of the visual novel game in the summer and the revival of the classic Digimon Adventure anime. It wasn’t that long ago that Bandai Namco announced that Digimon World: Next Order would be coming to Steam and Nintendo Switch as well.
The Digimon franchise has had mixed success with video games in the past, with no particular title standing out from the crowd of mediocrity and doing the anime justice. I always compare the franchise with Pokémon for some reason but for succeeding whereas the other did not. Pokémon games speak for themselves, they’ve been consistently brilliant since 1998, but the anime – although long-running and cherished by many – has never really tickled my fancy. Whereas the Digimon anime has always been an epic mix of storytelling, wicked animation, and with brilliant monster design, even though the games have mostly faltered.
Hopefully, this is the invigoration needed for the video game series to take off once again. The news was revealed in a video that formally announced the upcoming port of Digimon World: Next Order, where Habu revealed those sweet, sweet words: “multiple Digimon games are in the works at the studio.” There were no more details apart from that though, so fans should stay alert but patient for now.
But as you can see from the Twitter video above, the producers did have a few more details about other games. The video mentions the recently revealed port of Digimon World: Next Order which is set to be released on the Nintendo Switch and Steam on February 22, 2023. The port will also be adding a new beginner difficulty as well as the ability to run, something that has long been a complaint of the game.
Digimon Survive was the first major entry in the franchise since 2018s Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth – Hacker’s Memory (not the catchiest name though, is it?), and the reviews were positive, with praise being directed at the darker storyline, the fun digivolutions, strong writing, presentation, player agency, as well as the high replay value. We could be about to see the second coming of the Digimon universe, and we hopefully speak for everyone when we say that we can’t wait to see what will happen in the near future.