Although rumors of Steins;Gate 0's eventual western release have been floating around for at least the past couple of months, today Rice Digital have finally announced that the sequel to the hit Visual Novel Steins;Gate is coming to the west later this year. The company has confirmed that they will be releasing the game for both PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in the west; notably, the PS3 release of the title doesn't seem to be coming west. There also isn't any news of the PC version's release, though the PC port has yet to release in Japan either.
Note: There WILL be spoilers for the original Steins;Gate below this point. Due to the nature of Steins;Gate 0, even a simple plot synopsis will completely spoil the twist at the end of the first VN.
The plot of Steins;Gate 0 closely follows one particular aspect of the original title's true ending - the Okabe Rintaro that sends the video message to the VN's protagonist Okabe after his first failed attempt to save Makise Kurisu. In the first VN, his words that "everything that happened up to this point is important" tell Okabe exactly how to "fool" the world into letting Kurisu live. Steins;Gate 0 is the story of the man that sent that message; the Okabe who lived on after killing Makise Kurisu in his attempt to save her, and stayed put in the Alpha worldline.
It's currently unknown who exactly is translating Steins;Gate 0 this time around; a popular fan-translator by the name of Reading Steiner worked on the official release of the first VN, but has since been dropped from working on the series as a whole. Right now it seems most likely that Steins;Gate 0 is receiving an in-house translation, which could be either good or bad for fans of the series. As for exactly when this year the title will release; Rice Digital has currently only broadly claimed that the title will release this year. Yesterday a Spanish Amazon listing for the title that was leaked put the release date at August 26th of this year, which matches an earlier leak, but it's still too soon to say whether or not that information is accurate. If anything, the fact that the leaked listings only listed the PS4 and Vita versions of the game may point to their accuracy, though that is conjecture at this point.
Will you be picking up Steins;Gate 0? Did you play the original Steins;Gate when it was localized last year? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
