In my playground days, there was one question that fueled more factionalism than any political divide ever could. Were you a Digimon or a Pokémon kid? In the end, Pokémon seemed to definitively win that cold war, but now Digimon has reopened the rivalry on a brand new front with the announcement of Digimon Alysion, a TCG mobile game that could be the brand’s answer to Pokémon Pocket.
After dropping a teaser for the TCG earlier in the week, a full trailer for the mobile app emerged at Digicon 2025 on March 20. This showed off some gameplay, introduced us to a cast of new characters – named Kanata Hondo, Futre, and Valner Dragnogh – and even unveiled a brand new Digimon!
What the trailer didn’t include, however, was a release date. We still have no idea when Digimon Alysion is coming out.
We can glean a few more details from the trailer and the game’s brand new website, however. We can see that it’s an online card game rather than a solo experience for instance, though the inclusion of characters and new digital monsters implies the existence of a story mode. The site also tells us this will be a F2P app with in-game purchases.
One thing that’s obvious from the gameplay footage is that Digimon Alysion is clearly derived from Bandai Namco’s Digimon card game, released in 2020, as the cards have the same art and identical numbers. Whether it’ll be a complete port or a simplified version of the game in the vein of Pokémon Pocket we don’t know, however. Squinting a little, it seems like cards don’t have effects, but for all we know there could be a way to zoom in and read a card in more detail.
It’s pretty cool that the game could potentially be a vehicle to reveal more Digimon. So far there’s only Gemmon, however. This monster’s markings remind me of Calumon, only much fluffier, and covered in crystals. It’s cute, but something about it doesn’t scream ‘mascot material’ to me; I think it’s the beady little eyes.
Digicon 2025 took place on March 20. Alongside the Alysion reveal came more details on the upcoming videogame Digimon Story: Time Stranger, and a new D3 Digivice toy.
For news on similar games, you might like to read about the best trading card games, or check out our guides to the rarest Pokémon cards and everything that’s on the Magic: The Gathering release schedule for this year.
Source: Wargamer
