How the Digivolution system works in Digimon Story: Time Stranger
My recent hands-on with Digimon Story: Time Stranger for three hours at PAX West 2025 allowed me to figure out exactly how Digivolutions and De-Digivolutions worked in this new Digimon Story entry. Although I’ve already taken note of a lot of other details in a separate piece, the Digivolution system is much more involved and complex that I wanted to jot it all down separately.
Digivolutions in Time Stranger can be done any time outside of battle; you don’t need to go to a distinct place like the DigiLab in the previous Cyber Sleuth games. If you haven’t encountered or made a certain Digimon before, their Digivolution and De-Digivolutions will be silhouetted but it will tell you the requirements to make them. The basic, usual requirements involve being at a certain Agent Rank and meeting certain stat thresholds. Agent Rank seems like it goes up through main story progression and potentially side quests, though I wasn’t able to confirm that in my time with the game.
The key thing in Time Stranger is that these stat requirements largely involve the Personality mechanic. There are a total of 16 different Digimon Personalities and all of them directly influence the growth of specific stats on a Digimon as they level up. A Daring personality boosts ATK and DEF growth, while a Strategic one increases INT and SPI.
If I want my Kyubimon to Digivolve into the Digimon that requires at least 940 ATK and 890 SPD, I should probably try to make sure it has a Zealous personality because that increases the growth of those two specific stats. Of course, every Digimon has a non-linear evolution tree so it’s really up to players to decide which one they want to prioritize.
Time Stranger’s DigiFarm system is also another effective way to train up a Digimon’s specific stats. There are several consumables to either train or feed Digimon. Training Sets offer a way to shift a Digimon’s personality towards a certain quadrant of the Digimon Personality Type grid. Let’s take our previous example of Kyubimon; the Zealous personality is at the top right part of the grid where all the Valor-type personalities are. You’ll notice that the X-axis goes from Understanding to Heart and the Y-axis goes from Companionship to Affection.
The Punching Bag A Training Set boosts ATK, as well as shifting a Digimon’s Personality toward Heart and Affection - which are exactly what we need because the Zealous personality is located in those directions. Initiating a training regiment on the DigiFarm takes 30 minutes and I was informed that you do need to be in the game for that timer to tick down. People can spend in-game money to instantly complete the training though. Putting a Digimon on the DigiFarm to train also takes them out of your active and reserve party.
Additionally, your Digimon may talk to you out of battle at times. Sometimes you’ll be able to choose a response to them with a distinct symbol by the dialogue choice. Each of them correspond to one of the Digimon Personality Type quadrants, so it’s another way to influence their personality growth.
Personalities also matter for De-Digivolving too. The requirements to De-Digivolve are less demanding, but it requires players to have encountered that specific Digimon before and that the personality of the Digimon they’re trying to Digivolve match the base personality of the target they’re De-Digivolving to.
A Digimon’s current Personality will always be displayed on their status screen underneath their stats. There are more specific sub-systems that get into the nitty gritty of Digivolution revolving around mechanics such as Talent, Cumulative Stats, and Bond. You can find the tutorial descriptions for them down below. Although I didn’t get to see how DNA Digivolution exactly works, there was also a tutorial description detailing how DNA Digivolution skills that I’ll throw in there.
That covers the basics of Digivolution in Digimon Story: Time Stranger. I’ll also include a gallery down below of all the Champion-level Digimon that were in my party for those who want a first look at their Digivolution trees. The road to Time Stranger is almost done; it will be releasing in under a month on October 3 for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
Digimon Frontier fans might be wondering how Agunimon's Digivolutions will work, since the standard rules of Digivolution are handled differently with the unique hybrid Digimon that appear in Digimon Frontier. There will be a Beast Spirit of Flame that the player can acquire in Time Stranger; here are what Agunimon's Digivolution requirements look like.
