Bandai Namco has just announced that Digimon Survive has sold over 500,000 copies worldwide. This figure corresponds to sales on all platforms and is likely based on physical shipments and digital downloads.
Digimon, short for “Digital Monster,” is a popular Japanese franchise composed of various media. The series revolves around the life forms known as Digimon, monsters of various forms living in the “Digital World,” a parallel universe created from Earth’s various communication networks. Even though it’s not as popular as other Japanese media franchises, such as Final Fantasy, which will be present at The Game Awards, it’s still gained a loyal following worldwide.
The game was announced in 2018 and was initially developed with a much smaller budget than the previous series of games. However, as development progressed, producer Kazumasa Habu realized that their original budget and smaller studio weren’t going to cut it, which led to the game being redeveloped from scratch and switching to a different game engine. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic led to the game being delayed from its previously announced 2019 release date to a final release in 2022.
The game chose a new direction to take the franchise in, and the gameplay was a mixture between turn-based strategy RPGs and visual novels. However, despite the lukewarm reception when the game came out, Bandai Namco has revealed that it has gone on to sell around 500,000 copies. While this may not seem much compared to other titles, considering the small budget and troubled development, this can be seen as a success.
The last entry in the franchise, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth, has sold over 1.5 million copies, including the Hacker’s Memory re-release. So while Survive has some work to do to beat Cyber Sleuth, Bandai Namco thanks everyone who supported the game.
