E3 2021 has wrapped up, with most major companies taking turns on the digital stage. Konami, Sony, and EA were absent, but many other developers and publishers showed what their slates look like for the near and distant future. Bandai Namco showed a handful of games at the show, but only really focused on House of Ash, the next installment in the Dark Pictures anthology. It left many other rumored and upcoming titles out of its showing, seemingly intent to lean on the Elden Ring reveal with a potentially more informative Bandai Namco-branded Direct coming later. One notable absence from the show was Digimon Survive.

Now well over a year since its announcement in the July 2018 issue of Japanese magazine V-Jump, it has been a while since anything official was said about the game. It has received plenty of updates confirming the project is still alive, but unfortunately those typically coincided with delays. Fans have been eager to hear more about this unusual title, which is said to support multiple story routes and a dark tone, but it seems like Digimon Survive just isn’t ready yet — and there’s likely a good reason why.

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Digimon Survive’s History of Delays

Digimon Survive When To Expect News

Survive has been subject to a staggering number of delays. It’s almost comparable to infamous games like Dying Light 2 and Psychonauts 2 in just how many delays it has seen. Digimon Survive was originally slated to come out in 2019, but was delayed to 2020 halfway through that year. It was a fairly standard delay, and understandable due to the title’s proposed narrative scope. It was the next few delays that would really cast the game in a concerning light.

On July 29, 2020, Toei Animation Europe said Survive would release for Europe in January 2021, but this was quickly removed from its website. On October 8, 2020, producer Kazumasa Habu posted on Twitter that Survive was delayed again, which was quickly followed up on October 15 with an official announcement that the delay to 2021 came due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, with the lack of a mention of Digimon Survive at E3 and no press release in sight, it seems possible the misfortunate title has been delayed again.

Why Digimon Survive Still Doesn’t Have A Release Date

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Digimon Survive was initially set up as a fairly ambitious title that mixed monster-collecting, a strategy-RPG in which player units could change form mid-fight, and a visual novel that gave the player a number of moral quandaries to solve. What this entails is not yet known, but apparently the script could get quite dark if the player pushes for it, and Digimon already boasts more edge than the average Pokemon game. It’s possible that the scope of producing Digimon assets and writing branching story paths proved too much for Bandai Namco’s assigned developer to handle, leading to early delays.

Then, Japan was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Mass infections, lockdowns, and deaths have ravaged the small island nation for the past year, and while the game industry in general has fared better than others, it still got hit. Between the pandemic forcing people to work from home and the spread of the virus throughout Japan, it’s no wonder that the last big announcement for Survive was its latest delay near the end of 2020. Unfortunately, until further notice, fans looking forward to Digimon Survive may want to consider it indefinitely delayed until development stabilizes. Hopefully, Bandai Namco will have some good news about this promising RPG soon.

Digimon Survive is currently in development for PC, PlayStation 4, Switch, and Xbox One.

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