Digimon Story Time Stranger's Endured a Crazy 7-8 Year Dev Cycle

Digimon Story Time Stranger is shaping up to be one of the most ambitious Digimon games yet — a claim that's backed up by the sheer length of the project's development cycle.

In a new preview of the title from Japanese publication GameWatch (as translated by Automaton), producer Ryosuke Hara confirms that the game has been in development for roughly seven to eight years.

At least conceptually, Time Stranger started life around the same time that Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker's Memory released — and that was back in 2017.

So why's it taken so long? Well, aside from Time Stranger simply looking like a huge step up from previous games, Hara says it was actually the story that took ages to get right.

"We actually wanted to release it sooner, but what took the most time was fleshing out the game’s setting in order to really highlight the game’s central theme: ‘the bond between humans and Digimon,’ as well as building a story and world centered around the Olympos XII," he explains.

Granted, that won't mean much if you're not an in-the-know fan of the franchise, but it's still clear that the team's spent a lot of time ironing out the finer details. And that could be something for Digimon enthusiasts to really get excited about.

There's a scope here that we don't think has been present in past Digimon titles. Case in point: there are over 450 different monsters to unlock and train in Time Stranger — the largest roster in franchise history — and you can only imagine how much time all of those models would take to render in a modern graphical style.

It just sounds like this has been one hell of a ride for the developers. Hara's comment says it all: "I genuinely feel like we were able to make this game thanks to the development team’s passion, or rather madness."

Here's hoping, then, that the team's love for Digimon shines through in the finished game — which is still on track for a 3rd October release on PS5.

Would you have guessed that Time Stranger was in development for so long? Get dizzy thinking about all those Digimon in the comments section below.