Digimon Story: Time Stranger – Do you need to play other Digimon games first?

Digimon Story: Time Stranger is the latest in a long line of Digimon video games, stretching all the way back to 1999. Most of these games are largely self-contained and unrelated to each other, but there are a few connections here and there throughout the series, and Time Stranger is no different. 

With Time Stranger being the hot new game on the market, you might be wondering if you should hold off until you’ve played other games in the series. In this guide we’ll go over whether or not you should play other Digimon games before Digimon Story: Time Stranger, and explain the connection to other games in the series. 

Should you play other Digimon games first? – Digimon Story: Time Stranger 

You do not have to play other Digimon games before playing Digimon Story: Time Stranger, as it’s a mostly self-contained story with fairly minimal connections to other games. 

That said, there are some connections, namely to Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth and its interquel Hacker’s Memory. If you do want to play other games in the series, these are the ones you should consider playing, though they don’t necessarily have to come first to get the most out of Time Stranger. 

Digimon World Re:Digitize and Digimon World: Next Order also have minor connections to one of the main characters of the story, but this is not necessary to understand the story of Time Stranger at all. 

How does Digimon Story: Time Stranger connect to other games? 

Digimon Story: Time Stranger does have connections to other games in the Digimon franchise, but there are minor spoilers. We’ve put the image below in case you want to avoid spoilers, so don’t scroll past it if you don’t want to see them. 

Digimon Story: Time Stranger is a prequel to both Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth and its interquel Hacker’s Memory. This is hinted at by Kodai Kuremi, a character in Time Stranger who has the same surname as Kyoko Kuremi, one of the main characters in Cyber Sleuth. In Cyber Sleuth, one of Kyoko’s acquaintances is Gorou Matayoshi, an older detective who used to work in a Cyber Crimes Investigation Unit with Kyoko’s dad. Indeed, Kodai is a detective and works in a similar department in Public Safety. Kodai also mentions that he has a daughter who is roughly the same age as the teenaged protagonist in Time Stranger. 

The connection is confirmed in a DLC-exclusive quest unlocked by owning the Cyber outfit in Time Stranger. In this quest, a young Kyoko hires the protagonist to break into a Public Safety vehicle and download information about a shady upcoming project called Project EDEN, which is one of the primary plot points of Cyber Sleuth and Hacker’s Memory. This confirms that not only is Time Stranger set in the same universe as Cyber Sleuth, but that it is a direct prequel to it. 

Another connection is to Mirei Mikagura, a strange girl or woman – depending on when you visit – who appears in the In-Between Theater in Time Stranger. Mirei lives in the dimension between worlds, due to a mishap that happened in Digimon World Re:Digitize, where she was a major character in the story, and has appeared as a guide and ally to the player in Cyber Sleuth, Hacker’s Memory, and Digimon World: Next Order, as well as in Time Stranger. At this point, she's more of a series mascot than a character you particularly need to worry about, like Moogles in Final Fantasy.