Fans looking forward to the upcoming Digimon Survive RPG are going to have to wait a while longer, as it is currently being put on hold indefinitely to be reworked by developer Bandai Namco. The long-running Digimon franchise has spawned countless video games to go with its numerous anime and manga adaptations over the years, retaining a small but devoted following on both sides of the Pacific despite an overall lack of mainstream attention.
Digimon Survive is a survival strategy RPG that tells the story of a group of Japanese teenagers who find themselves trapped in another world filled with the titular digital monsters. To survive, the player will have to take command of their own partner Digimon in isometric turn-based battles through a storyline filled with difficult decisions and multiple endings. In addition, Digimon Survive promises to be a much darker game than past Digimon titles like the Digimon Cyber Sleuth series, which has been re-released for the Switch to in the form of the collective Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Complete Edition earlier this year to reasonable praise.
Unfortunately, TechRaptor has reported earlier today that Digimon Survive has now changed its release date from “2020” to “TBD,” meaning that the game has effectively been delayed indefinitely. Apparently, Bandai Namco is retooling the game from top to bottom, despite it seemingly being really far along in development before this decision was made. In addition, Digimon Survive’s official website hasn’t been updated since last August, when it posted a video of the game’s opening movie.
This hasn’t been the only Digimon-related delay to happen this week, as the most recent anime series, a reboot of the original Digimon Adventure, was put on hiatus as a result of the recent coronavirus pandemic causing production shutdowns all around the world. Additionally, the recent Digimon feature film, titled Digimon Adventure: Kizuna Last Evolution, has been pulled from theaters in the wake of several closings steaming from the virus and is instead going to be released on DVD and Blu-Ray sometime later this year.
Digimon Survive promises to take the Digimon video game franchise in a different, fresher direction, so this recent delay might be disappointing for some fans. There is no clear word yet as to why Bandai Namco has decided to retool the game, but it may be worth the longer wait if the result is a better experience. An experience that Digimon Survive looks to provide via a darker, more desperate premise than the Digimon franchise’s usual video game fair.
Source: TechRaptor