One of the Best RPGs of 2025 Gets Free Release on Nintendo Switch and Switch 2

One of the best RPGs of 2025 just got a free release on Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 via the eShop. Obviously, 2025 was an exemplary year for RPGs thanks to releases like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, The Outer Worlds 2, and Monster Hunter Wilds. These were probably the four standouts, but there was one other RPG that flew under the radar a bit but deserves to be in the conversation of Best RPGs of 2025, and it now has a free demo on the Nintendo eShop.

Back on October 5, developer Media Vision and publisher Bandai Namco Entertainment released the seventh game in the Digimon Story series, and the first in eight years, called Digimon Story: Time Stranger, and it was the best release in the sub-series so far. It was only released on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X, though. On July 10, in about a month, it will finally come to both Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2. Before this, the aforementioned pair have released a free demo for the game that will allow Digimon and RPG fans alike to play it early and carry forward their progress into the full release next month.

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Fan-Favorite RPG

Digimon Story: Time Stranger is a standalone release, despite being the 7th installment in its series. And it’s a fan-favorite one at that. On Metacritic, it has a score of 81, which is very solid, but noticeably lower than its user reviews. To this end, on Steam it has a 93% approval rating and a 96/100 on the PlayStation Store. Not only does it offer quality, but quality across a large amount of content, offering up to 70 hours of RPG content.

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When the full game releases, it will cost $70, making this demo incredibly valuable, as it provides a taste of the game to inform your decision to purchase it, because $70 is a large amount of money in this economy, and the Nintendo eShop has a non-existent refund policy.

As you may know, many of the great RPGs, especially the larger open-world RPGs, skip Nintendo consoles. To this end, any given year, Nintendo RPG fans often have fewer choices than those on other platforms. This year, there is Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave, the port of Elden Ring, and a couple of other noteworthy releases, but not a tone, making the imminent arrival of this Bandai Namco RPG very timely.

All of that said, and as always, feel free to leave a comment or two letting us know what you think, or join the video game conversations happening over on the ComicBook Forum.