Steins;Gate visual novel game coming to the US!

The Steins;Gate visual novel game has been everywhere, but now it will even be in English! I actually picked up the anime adaptation for Steins;Gate last year and was instantly hooked. It’s about time travel and the effects of playing with time. Steins;Gate has conspiracy theories, suspense, emotional hooks, and everyone’s favorite “zombie,” Kurisu Makise.

So where has this visual novel been so far?

Steins;Gate has appeared on the PC, PSP, PS3, and Xbox 360. Not to mention the anime has released in Japanese and English already. JAST USA officially announced the move to bring the visual novel to the West at Anime Expo. Rumors had been floating around about this for a while, but now the news is official.

What is a visual novel?

A visual novel is basically a game with set paths. Sometimes the story will branch like Fate Stay Night, other times the story will be a straight shot. Both a branching story and a straight shot story will be affected by the player guided choices. For a branching story not all decisions have a “Bad Ending” option, or game over. Straight shots will just have the one right decision and other options will be Bad Ends.

New to Steins;Gate?

For those that have never heard of Steins;Gate, the visual novel will have the full suspense effect it was supposed to have. While I’m not saying people who have watched the anime won’t enjoy it, the story is pretty similar, so it loses the surprise factor. I’ll give you a basic introduction to the story. The main character, Rintarou Okabe, is trying to create a time machine for his own purposes. His friends have created the Future Gadget Laboratory, where they create weird gadgets leading up to attempts at creating a time machine. Kurisu Makise and others find themselves dragged into the thick of it. That’s about as far as I can go without giving spoilers. If you really have to know more about the story now, the anime is completed in english.