Given that Survive is developed by the studio Witchcraft instead of any veteran developer, it would be reasonable to assume that its delays are not holding up the rest of the franchise. However, Bandai Namco seems dead-set on making this the current flagship console Digimon title, and little in the way of Digimon games have been announced since Survive was. Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Complete Edition came out later, but the rest of Digimon’s many facets have been neglected. There have been many different lines of Digimon games over the years, and one of the oldest and most well-known, Digimon World, should come back after Digimon Survive is out.
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Digimon World Has a Strong Legacy
Digimon World is a long-running series of Digimon RPGs that’s been around since the PS1. The first game came out in Japan in 1999, and featured a young boy traveling to the digital world to make friends and fight off an evil force. Many games in the Digimon World line go something like this, though the specifics can vary. Sometimes other human characters were around, and sometimes the player commands a lone Digimon or many. At any rate, one thing almost every game in the series has in common is their Digimon raising mechanics, which encourage the player to actively train and take care of their partner Digimon. Different evolutions can result from this in some games, but that’s more the realm of the Digimon Story titles.
Digimon World is notable in that it doesn’t have a single unifying type of gameplay throughout its entries. Most of them can be defined as some type of RPG, though this can mean anything from a Final Fantasy imitator to an action game where the player must give orders to AI-controlled Digimon in real time. Digimon World 4 stands out the most, as it is a four-player cooperative brawler that only possesses light pet-raising mechanics. The poor reception to that change was probably the reason why Digimon World went on a seven-year hiatus after that. Digimon World Re:Digitize and Digimon World: Next Order are the series’ most recent games, and they return to the real-time command gameplay style of the first Digimon World.
There Needs To Be a New Digimon World
It’s not hard to see how this particular series stands out among other monster collecting games. Whereas in a Pokemon, Shin Megami Tensei, or Digimon Story game a player might collect many different monsters and evolve or fuse them into different forms, Digimon World is more focused on the relationship between a player and their Digimon. Aside from Digimon World 2 and 3, the series also trends towards light action gameplay where the player directs battles from the sidelines. This alternative approach gives the Digimon World games their unique flavor. In a time when SMT has returned and Pokemon is still going strong, it makes sense to release a game targeting a niche that neither of those franchises is trying to fill.
It feels like Digimon World has been on the cusp of greatness for a long time, and one more big title could be the push it needs. The series has suffered from a combination of not refining old ideas, and, in the case of later titles, being initially made for portable systems. A new World made for consoles that carries on the real-time-with-pause advancements made in Digimon World: Next Order could be the big break the series needs. Giving players a chance to go on an adventure with a party of two or three Digimon who can be raised into many different forms sounds like a great experience. All that needs to happen first is for Digimon Survive to finally come out.
Digimon Survive is scheduled for release in 2022 for PC, PlayStation 4, Switch, and Xbox One.
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