Steins;Gate
Steins;Gate is a 2009 science fiction visual novel game developed by 5pb. and Nitroplus. It is the second game in the Science Adventure series, following Chaos;Head. The story follows a group of students as they discover and develop technology that gives them the means to change the past. The gameplay in Steins;Gate includes branching scenarios with courses of interaction.
Steins;Gate was released in Japan for the Xbox 360 in October 2009. The game was ported to Windows in August 2010, PlayStation Portable in June 2011, iOS in August 2011, PlayStation 3 in May 2012, PlayStation Vita in March 2013, and Android in June 2013. JAST USA released the PC version in North America in March 2014, both digitally and as a physical collector's edition, while PQube released the PS3 and Vita versions in North America and Europe in 2015. Additionally, the iOS version was released in English in September 2016. The game is described by the development team as a speculative science ADV.
A manga adaptation of the game, written by Yomi Sarachi, was serialized from 2009 to 2013, and later published in North America from 2015 to 2016. A second manga series, illustrated by Kenji Mizuta, began serialization in Mag Garden's Monthly Comic Blade in December 2009. An anime series adaptation by White Fox aired in Japan from April to September 2011, and has been licensed in North America by Funimation. An animated sequel film premiered in Japanese theaters in April 2013. A fan disc of the game, titled Steins;Gate: My Darling's Embrace, was released in June 2011. A non-canon 8-bit sequel to the game, titled Steins;Gate: Hen'i Kuukan no Octet or Steins;Gate 8bit, was released in October 2011. Another game, Steins;Gate: Linear Bounded Phenogram, was released in April 2013.
A follow-up game, Steins;Gate 0, was released in December 2015 for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and Vita; it received an anime adaptation in 2018. A remake of the original visual novel titled Steins;Gate Elite which presents fully animated cutscenes from the Steins;Gate anime, was released for PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo Switch and Steam in 2019. Included as a bonus for the Nintendo Switch version, an entirely new game called 8-bit ADV Steins;Gate, in the style of Famicom adventure games from the 1980s, was released. Another remake, titled Steins;Gate Re:Boot, was officially announced in October 2024 with a release date of 2025 but has been postponed to 2026.
Gameplay
Steins;Gates gameplay requires little interaction from the player as most of the duration of the game is spent reading the text that appears on the screen, which represents either the dialogue between the various characters or the thoughts of the protagonist. Like many other visual novels, there are specific points in Steins;Gate where the user is given a choice to affect the direction of the game. For these decision points, Steins;Gate presents the user with the "phone trigger" system. When the player receives a phone call, the player can choose to answer or ignore the call. Incoming text messages have specific words underlined and highlighted in blue, much like a hyperlink on a browser, which the player can select to reply to the text message. Most phone calls or text messages do not require a response, though there are certain points in the game where the player is required to take action. Depending on the player's choices of how to respond to these phone calls and text messages, the plot will progress in a specific direction.Synopsis
Setting and themes
Steins;Gate is set in the summer of 2010, approximately one year after the events that took place in Chaos;Head, in Akihabara. Physical locales of Akihabara like the Radio Kaikan building can be spotted in the game. According to Chiyomaru Shikura, who headed the planning of Steins;Gate, Akihabara was chosen because it is an easy place for acquiring hardware parts, which makes it the ideal place for people interested in inventing and tinkering with things. The notion of time and time traveling are the main themes of the game. The concept of cause and effect is featured prominently in the game as the protagonist travels back in time numerous times to perform different actions in an attempt to alter what has happened in the future. Steins;Gate also features hard science fiction elements.Characters
;Rintaro "Okarin" Okabe;Kurisu Makise
;Mayuri "Mayushii" Shiina
;Itaru "Daru" Hashida
;Moeka Kiryu
;Luka "Lukako" Urushibara
;Faris NyanNyan / Rumiho Akiha
;Suzuha Amane
;Yugo Tennouji
;Nae Tennouji
;Doctor Nakabachi
Plot
''True End'' route
The following summary is based upon the True End route.Steins;Gate takes place in the Akihabara district of Tokyo. On July 28, 2010, Okabe Rintaro and his friend Shiina Mayuri head towards the Radio Kaikan building for a conference, where Okabe finds a girl named Makise Kurisu lying in a pool of blood. As Okabe sends a text message about the incident to his friend, Hashida "Daru" Itaru, he experiences a strange phenomenon and the people around him disappear, with no one else noticing anything had changed. After later running into Kurisu, who is strangely alive and well, and discovering the message he had sent to Itaru had arrived a week before he sent it, Okabe soon deduces that the 'PhoneWave' he and his friends had been developing is, in fact, a time machine capable of sending text messages to the past. He and his friends soon learn that SERN, an organization that has been researching time travel for some time, has actually succeeded in sending humans into the past, although they seem to have all resulted in the test subjects' deaths. Okabe begins experimenting with "D-Mails", which begin to cause major differences in the timeline. Kurisu also manages to create a device to send a person's memories through the microwave, allowing that person to effectively leap into the past.
However, SERN learns of the time machine and sends a group led by Moeka to retrieve it and killing Mayuri in the process. Using Kurisu's time leap machine, Okabe travels back in time numerous times to try to save Mayuri, but to no avail. As Okabe reaches wit's end, he is approached by Amane Suzuha, a girl from a future ruled by SERN due to their possession of a time machine, who tells him that he needs to return to a Beta worldline in which Mayuri won't die. By undoing the effects of the D-Mails that caused shifts in the timeline, Okabe regains possession of an IBN 5100 PC that they lost earlier, allowing them to crack into SERN's systems and delete the evidence of Okabe's original D-Mail. However, Okabe realizes that by doing so, he would have to return to a world line in which Kurisu is dead. After realizing their feelings for each other, Kurisu tells Okabe to save Mayuri. Reluctantly, Okabe agrees and deletes the evidence of his D-Mail from SERN's database, returning him to the Beta world line, where Kurisu died as she did at the start of the story, and the rest of the cast, sans Okabe, do not remember that anything had happened.
A couple days later, an alternate world line variant of Suzuha appears before Okabe, having arrived in a time machine from the future. She tells Okabe that the only way to prevent World War III in the future is to prevent Kurisu's death at the hands of her father, Dr. Nakabachi, who stole her time travel theory to publish it under his own name. However, this operation ends in a disaster as Okabe ends up killing Kurisu himself by mistake. After this failure, Okabe receives a message from his future self, telling him that the way to save Kurisu without altering the events that led to him developing a time machine is to fool his past self into believing Kurisu had been killed and thus achieving the final divergence value of 1.048596%, which he dubs 'Steins Gate'. Returning to the past again, Okabe puts his own life in danger in order to save Kurisu's life, prevent Nakabachi from successfully escaping with the time travel theory, and fool his past self, setting him on his journey through time. After this, Okabe returns to the Steins Gate world line, safe from the threat of a third world war. Later, Okabe and Kurisu manage to reunite by chance in the streets of Akihabara, with Kurisu appearing to possess some lingering memories of their history together.
Alternate endings
The player's choices throughout the game results in alternate endings.- In the Amane Suzuha Ending, Okabe decides to not send the D-Mail that would prevent him from pursuing Suzuha. To prevent Mayuri's death, he re-lives the final two days before her murder through constant time-leaping. After countless leaps, Okabe loses all emotion and personality due to re-living the same two days for all eternity. Eventually, Suzuha notices Okabe's behavior. She tells him that he will slowly "die" on the inside, and the world's set divergence will continue as planned. Both of them decide to travel to the past together and vow to stop SERN's dystopian future, despite the possibility of both losing their memories on arrival.
- In the Faris NyanNyan Ending, Okabe decides to not send the D-Mail that results in the death of Faris's father to try to stop the loss of the IBN 5100 computer. He instead sends a different D-Mail in an attempt to convince Faris's father to not part with the IBN computer. Beyond 1% divergence is achieved, but the divergence meter gives a strange output and none of Okabe's friends have any memories of him. In this worldline, Okabe and Faris are a couple and live together, participating in RaiNet Access Battlers card game tournaments. Although disappointed that none of his friends remember him, Okabe is still satisfied that he was able to prevent Mayuri's death. He decides to build a new life with Faris at his side.
- In the Urushibara Luka Ending, Okabe decides to not send the D-Mail that reverts Luka to a guy. He fully accepts Mayuri's expected death and makes no more attempts to save her and they spend the last two days together before she dies of a heart attack. Okabe and Luka decide to spend the rest of their lives together, both of them sharing a pang of guilt and sadness that only they would understand. In a post-credit scene they are revealed to now have a child together.
- In the Shiina Mayuri Ending, Okabe must choose between saving Mayuri or Kurisu. Realizing that he harbors romantic feelings for Mayuri, Okabe and Kurisu decide to return to the Beta worldline in which Kurisu's murder continues as planned. After hacking into SERN's database with the IBN computer, a 1% divergence is achieved. Okabe vows to remember his memories of Kurisu and spends his time with Mayuri as lovers.
- The Makise Kurisu Ending follows a similar route to the True End. To achieve this ending, one must have had several conversations with Kurisu throughout the game. Doing so allows Okabe and Kurisu to realize their inner feelings for each other. Unlike the True End, Kurisu's death is not prevented after the credits; Suzuha never returns and it is implied that this world will eventually meet the fate of World War III.