Over the years, there have been eight major games in the beloved Star Ocean franchise, excluding spin-offs and remakes. As is common with many JRPGs, though, these video games aren’t necessarily in chronological order. For example, The Last Hope is the seventh game made, but it’s the first timeline-wise. So, if you want to experience the story in order, let’s break down the Star Ocean chronology.

The Star Ocean timeline

If you guessed that the Star Ocean franchise’s release and chronological order are completely out of sync, you’d be right. The first chunk of the series was made in the late 90s and early 2000s, but then the series didn’t get much love until a host of remakes for several platforms in the late 2000s. Then, fans have gotten three new games in a little more than five years.

With each release, the games hop around this world’s history, and there’s no telling where they might end up with the next game. But as far as The Divine Force goes, there are a lot of games in between it and the beginning of the Star Ocean series. So, here’s a quick rundown:

  • 2097 AD – Star Ocean: The Last Hope (released 2009) 2432 AD – Star Ocean (released 1996) 2452 AD – Star Ocean: The Second Story (released 1999) 2454 AD – Star Ocean: Blue Sphere (released 2001) 2623 AD – Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness (released 2016) 2635 AD – Star Ocean: Anamnesis (released 2016) 2670 AD – Star Ocean: The Divine Force (released 2022) 2858 AD – Star Ocean: Till the End of Time (released 2003)

When do other Star Ocean games take place?

Most other Star Ocean games are simple remakes and remasters of previous games. First Departure and Second Evolution fall into this category, as well as a handful of versions of The Last Hope and Till the End of Time with updated graphics. Meanwhile, Star Ocean: Material Trader is simply not part of the timeline at all. It’s a spin-off card game that uses the franchise’s graphics and characters, but it’s not really part of the Star Ocean narrative.

In the future, new Star Ocean games would likely happen in the gaps between The Last Hope and Star Ocean or The Divine Force and Till the End of Time. That, or they’ll try to tackle the complex “outside of 4D space” world state that Till the End of Time left the series in.