When Bandai Namco invited me to a four-hour preview for Digimon Story Time Stranger in the middle of PAX West 2025, I was intimidated to say the least. Powering through previews between PAX and gamescom 2025, I had gotten accustomed to rushed appointments, where I needed to get a grasp on all of the gameplay elements in a hurry. Luckily, Bandai Namco recognized that this approach would do a great disservice to Digimon Story Time Stranger, as even the lengthy preview wasn’t enough to truly take in all it has to offer.
In Digimon Story Time Stranger, you take on the role of an Operator who is able to journey between the human and digital worlds. In my preview, I was able to choose between a man and a woman, and whoever I didn’t choose was guiding me via my Digivice. You are sent to the Digital World to investigate a strange anomaly. If you’d like to learn more about the specifics of the Digimon Story Time Stranger story, you can see the story trailer below.
I started off with a tutorial section of Digimon Story Time Stranger where I learned about the various types (Virus, Data, or Vaccine) of Digimon and how they work together. The game doesn’t assume every player is a Digimon expert, and I really appreciated the opportunity to get acquainted with the mechanics. This is also where we were introduced to a brand-new system, new to Digimon overall, personalities.
Each Digimon now comes loaded with its own personality in Digimon Story Time Stranger. After battles and along on your journey, dialogue moments will pop up with your Digimon, allowing you to have a little chat with them. It often felt like they were trying to learn from you, and you would have dialogue options that could help guide their personality type. Each type has varying effects, from boosted attacks to crit and more.
“Each Digimon now comes loaded with its own personality in Digimon Story Time Stranger.“
Later in the game, you will have access to the Digifarm, which provides even more ways to train and change your Digimon’s personality. There are a few reasons you may want to do this, too. Evolving your Digimon usually requires some sort of prerequisites. Sometimes it’s a number captured you need to meet, but other times you may need the creature to have a personality type for a specific Digivolution. Some Digimon have one or two options, others have many, plus De-Digivolutions. It’s a lot to wrap your head around.
In total there are 450 Digimon and their Digivolutions in Digimon Story Time Stranger. If you want to collect everything, you will need to play around with Digivolve or De-Digivolve. I was sad to see my tiny, adorable, ball-like Digimon grow into massive, muscular creatures, instead expecting them to remain cute and tiny. Luckily, with 999 storage slots, there is enough room for everyone. In battle, you can have three battle members, three back-ups if you need to swap out or your original three die, plus three guest members, who are with you as part of the story.
There is no shortage of things to keep track of during a fight. You can determine which type is strong against another, or which kind of attacks each Digimon is weak to. You can use basic attacks or bring out specials to give a particular type of damage, or even use defensive abilities. Swapping Digimon out for others is also available, as well as using a single healing item per turn. It is a lot to think about each round, but players can also turn on auto-battle and even change the speed up the animations to suit their liking.
“…Digimon Story Time Stranger really highlights the bond between a person and their Digimon, making it a central theme of the story.”
The entirety of Digimon Story Time Stranger is voice-acted. From the various Digimon and their digivolution to the Operator in your Digidevice and other characters in the world. Considering whichever character you don’t choose to play ends up voice-acted through your Digidevice, I thought it was an odd choice that you, as the main character, in fact, do not speak. You often see your mouth move, but there is no audio over this.
Digimon Story Time Stranger Producer, Ryosuke Hara, commented on why they went this route, “As the main character, whether you choose a girl or the guy, we wanted the player to be able to put themselves in the main character’s shoes. Therefore, if we were to give that main character a voice, it impedes that idea. And if we were to give that character a very strong personality, that would also impede that idea. So that’s the reason why we decided to go with this non-voiced main character style of game.”
Something I didn’t expect while playing Digimon Story Time Stranger was the amount the game could tug on my heart strings. Whether it is a character talking about how they look at their Digimon like a brother, or your own Digimon looking to you for advice or guidance, Digimon Story Time Stranger really highlights the bond between a person and their Digimon, making it a central theme of the story.
I didn’t expect to resonate with Digimon Story Time Stranger in the way that I did. With strong JRPG elements, a deep story and creature collection and manipulation that suits all my hearing needs, I really enjoyed my time during the demo.
Digimon Story Time Stranger releases on PC, Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 on October 2, 2025.
