The latest in the long-running series of Steins;Gate collaborations has finally been announced. You might want to buckle up for this one.
Announced today via a joint press release, Steins;Gate is officially joining the Fortnite universe as part of the latter game’s ongoing Chapter 3 arc. Check out the press release below:
The Insane Mad Scientist Joins the Resistance!
An ending, and a new beginning... Rintaro Okabe and his compatriots, the Mages of Rebirth and Destruction, have officially joined the fight for the future! Gear up with new themed skins, weapons, and emotes, and prepare to take The Island back from the Organization of 300 and the Imagined Order!
Scientific Mayhem!!
The Island's been infested with invading gadgets, and they're hostile! Keep an eye out for flying turrets raining hellfire (Future Gadget No. 212, the Bomboo Helicam), gargantuan killer robots on the roam (Future Gadget No. 658, Gunvzilla), and mysterious rifts housing sentient, violent blades (Future Gadget No. 7400, DI-SORDER-NEW-ORDER). Make use of your alluring mad scientist wiles, and you may even be able to turn these dastardly weapons to your advantage on the battlefield!
Get Ready to Play the Anime!!!
Not quite familiar with Rintaro's epic time travel saga? Worry not, lab members to come; from now until May 1st, you can queue into the Fortnite-exclusive "Gate of Observation" mode and experience the entire Steins;Gate anime series, right from the comfort of your client! Go ahead and invite your friends for a watch party—after all, who says you can't have a little Fortflix and chill before you save the universe?
Epic Games and MAGES. have previewed some of the collaboration’s content ahead of its impending launch. While many of these items will be unlockable through the Battle Pass, a select few (such as the Bloodthirsty Gero Froggy skin) will only be available through the Item Shop.
Epic Games has disclosed that when players equip the Rintaro Okabe skin, there is a small chance (less than 1%) that the mad scientist will emit an ear-splitting wail while emoting. A wide range of potential screams are being added to the game for this purpose—over one hundred in total. It’s not currently clear why this feature is being implemented.
Descriptions have been provided for many of the incoming emotes, skins, and sprays. Check them out below:
UPDATE: We reached out to a certain MAGES. representative for comment and managed to secure a brief Q&A session on the collaboration. An audio recording of said session was taken, but unfortunately lost due to a bizarre case of electromagnetic interference. Nonetheless, we were able to recover a transcript of the conversation, provided below.
KKB: Can you give us a few more details about this collaboration? How exactly does it tie into the Science Adventure series?
MAGES. rep: Well, the first thing I should probably say is that what you call the “Science Adventure series” is no more. But rather than say it’s gone, it’s actually evolved now, into the “Steins;Universe Extended Series;Gate Universe” series. We also call it “the Steins;Gate series” for short.
As to how this collaboration ties into this series… Do you remember when we revealed “Steins;???” Well, I should actually be transparent and say that this collaboration is Steins;??? (laughs). This is the natural progression of the series, and actually, we’ve already begun developing a visual novel that will cover this collaboration’s events and plot details. With permission from Mr. Sweeney, we’ve even been able to finalize the title of the visual novel: “Steins;Nite: Forts of Tomorrow.”
KKB: Uh… right. Okay, could you tell us a bit more about this Steins… Fort? Fort/Steins Nite?
MAGES. rep: Steins;Nite: Forts of Tomorrow.
KKB: Right… that. Tell us about that.
MAGES. rep: Well, for various reasons, after the events of Anonymous;Code the world becomes inverted in many ways. Everything is the opposite, basically. Remember who the good guys were? They are the bad guys now. And Mister Braun is a HD TV enthusiast, for example. That’s a poor example, but you know what I mean (laughs).
When we said the story of Steins;Gate was complete and we wanted to explore something different, I think there was a bit of misunderstanding among fans. Yes, the focus is no longer the Rintaro Okabe you know, and the new game isn’t a continuation of the Steins;Gate plotline. But instead, you get to follow a robotic clone of Rintaro Okabe in an alternate city opposite of Steins;Gate’s, called “Bara’akiha.” Basically, the clones in the story are mass-produced in a labyrinth and designed to do the bidding of the Organization of 300. They’re not aware that they’re working under a system of evil, and they believe they’re upholding a peaceful world order by following commands.
But basically, the plot goes that one of the clones gets free and realizes what has happened to the world. He’s able to do this because his Reading Steiner synchronizes with the backup of the original Okabe’s on the 2037 Anonymous Network, you see. So now, that Okabe’s goal is to start a robot uprising, oppose the indomitable 300, restore peace, and the old world as well.
In many ways the storyline resembles Steins;Gate, because we know how much our fans love Steins;Gate. We wanted to make sure fans would have something to love here, too. Of course, you could also just call all this one of Okabe’s chuunibyou fantasies (laughs).
KKB: That is… quite a lot to take in. And you’re saying all this is linked to Fortnite’s plot, somehow?
MAGES. rep: Yes. This might come as a surprise, but the crossover plotline is actually meant to be the shocking climax of the visual novel we are producing. The fact that Okabe and his army enters the Fortnite world is a key point of the visual novel’s true ending, truthfully. Unfortunately, because of the timing of our production schedule, it was going to be difficult to launch this crossover any later than now. Technically, it is a bit of a spoiler to learn of this collaboration first (laughs).
Basically, by incorporating the world-famous Fortnite into our series, we’re hoping to branch out to a much wider audience. So far we have been able to appeal to visual novel fans with our visual novels, anime fans with our animated visual novels, eroge fans with our visual novels that barely pass the rating boards, QTE fans with Robotics;Notes, and so on. This time, we’re looking a little further: we want to appeal to shooting-game fans. There is the profitable V-Bucks model to consider (we want to incorporate this into future releases), and also, the success of other similar crossovers. Like the Higurashi X PUBG crossover, for example.
KKB: That’s… I…
Um, okay, moving on. Could you tell us what’s going on with all the characters in this collaboration? Okabe makes sense, and the SciADV characters too, I guess, but why the Infinity series? Why YU-NO? And for that matter, how was MAGES. able to include all these visual novel series produced by other companies?
MAGES. rep: We’ve actually acquired the rights to some outside visual novel series for the purposes of this grand collaboration. We haven’t announced this yet, though, so shhh… (laughs). We also decided to dig up some licenses we already owned for this event—we wanted to remind fans that we still remember those games, and in the best possible way, of course.
Our main focus is still the Steins; part of the series, but depending on how well items from the other games sell during this collaboration, we may also consider some standalone remakes or sequels to them. Though, Steins; is still what most people want, so for now most of our resources are focused on Dr. Okabe (laughs).
KKB: Okay, since I have you here, I might as well ask: what’s going on with Occultic;Nine New World? What about volume 4 of the light novel series? Fans have been waiting for them for a very long time, and—
MAGES. rep: Thank you for conducting this interview. It was nice to speak to you. I’ll see you on the battlefields of Fortnite!
(Sudden onslaught of static arises in recording)
Happy April Fools’ 2022! Please note that this article is satirical; no part of it should be taken seriously.
A hearty special thanks to milkyzer0 and oshmkufa for providing this article’s 2D and 3D visual assets respectively, as well as assisting with its overall direction.
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