Announced by Spike Chunsoft at GDC 2018, the updated version of Steins;Gate, Steins;Gate Elite will come to Western shores later this year. Steins;Gate Elite combines the magnificent anime series with the original visual novel. New to Elite are special animated sequences created for certain endings, as well as playing through routes not seen in the television show. Steins;Gate Elite will come to PS4, Switch, and PC both digitally and physically sometime later this year. There's no price yet listed, though importers are listing copies at $69.99 USD.
The different console versions of Steins;Gate Elite will come with special DLC offerings. The PS4 version of Elite will come with an HD remake of Steins;Gate Phantogram. Phantogram is a collection of 10 different side stories written by a number of different game writers, Zero Escape's Kotaro Uchikoshi among them. Switch owners will get their hands on Steins;Gate 8-bit instead. 8-bit is a "demake" of the original game featuring 8-bit graphics and a chiptune soundtrack, all supervised by series creator Shikura Chiyomaru. There's no further information on how to acquire these DLC episodes at this time, or what, if anything, the PC release of Elite will get. Nevertheless, these extra episodes already pack in a fairly substantial offering.
Steins;Gate tells the life of Rintaro Okabe, as he and a cast of eclectic students develop a time travel device. By modifying a microwave, the group is able to send text messages back in time to change the past, and thereby the future. Regularly considered to be one of the best visual novels of all time, Steins;Gate blends conspiracies, science fiction, and a whole lot of emotional trauma in a compelling package. It is worth noting that Steins;Gate Elite is not the first time the series has appeared on consoles, appearing on the Vita and PS3 in 2015. Now, Switch and PS4 owners will get a chance to delve into Okabe's madness for themselves, sometime later this year. Spike Chunsoft will be running a stream showing off all the games they announced at GDC this year on Twitch at 5:00pm PST/8:00pm EST.
