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What happened to Steins;Gate 0 Elite?

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Wow, time flies. Today marks the Steins;Gate 0 anime’s seventh anniversary. And honestly, it feels like it was just yesterday that I was still in high school watching every new episode week to week.

But the Steins;Gate 0 anime wasn’t the only major Steins;Gate-related project that released back in 2018. The same year, MAGES. also dropped Steins;Gate Elite. Unlike Robotics;Notes Elite, which was a simple enhanced rerelease that only featured occasional added scenes from the anime to improve the game’s presentation, Steins;Gate Elite was a fully animated remake of the original visual novel. 

Steins;Gate Elite Graphic

By and large, the concept was for it to feature the original visual novel’s text but the anime’s visuals to make what MAGES. advertised as a definitive version of the story. In the end, of course, Steins;Gate Elite wasn’t truly a definitive version of Steins;Gate—it had to cut out over 35% of the original visual novel’s lines due to a lack of corresponding animations. And even the new animated content they added for Elite was noticeably poorer in quality compared to the content sourced from the anime. But Steins;Gate Elite was nonetheless a fairly interesting concept for MAGES. to have experimented with.

So the natural next question that came to people’s’ minds, given the recency of the Steins;Gate 0 anime, was “What if they made a Steins;Gate 0 Elite?” At the time, fans had speculated that such an endeavor would be quite difficult since the Steins;Gate 0 visual novel and Steins;Gate 0 anime had too much content exclusive to one another.

But nonetheless, what followed over the course of 2019 and 2020 would prove to be a very interesting turn of events. The year after the release of the Steins;Gate 0 anime and Steins;Gate Elite was 2019—the year of Steins;Gate’s tenth anniversary. And throughout 2019 and 2020, MAGES. announced a number of different anniversary projects to commemorate the occasion. Among these projects was a live event they held in January 2020, and it was during this event that they actually did it. They legitimately announced Steins;Gate 0 Elite, a fully animated remake of the Steins;Gate 0 visual novel just like Steins;Gate Elite. 

Steins;Gate 0 Elite Logo

And the very prospect of a Steins;Gate 0 Elite was quite exciting—because of the unique structure of Steins;Gate 0’s story. Those of you who have gone through the 0 visual novel and anime, as well as some of the side material Steins;Gate 0 was based off of, would know that because of the way Steins;Gate 0’s narrative works, the 0 anime is effectively a final route for or sequel to the visual novel rather than a conventional adaptation of it. 

Because of this, a Steins;Gate 0 Elite taking the same sort of approach as Steins;Gate Elite would require MAGES. and White Fox to newly animate a ridiculous amount of material. And this would thus require them to spend a crazy sum of money that would likely exceed their return on investment. But let’s say we were in a hypothetical situation where they actually did this anyway. That would mean that Steins;Gate 0 Elite would combine the stories of all the original Steins;Gate 0 visual novel routes and the anime-original “final route” to create one definitive version of Steins;Gate 0 where you can get the full story in one package. This possibility kept many fans hopeful for what could prove to be a very promising game.

It was only nine months after this initial announcement that MAGES. unveiled new information surrounding the project at another live-streamed event in October of 2020, where they also had a couple of other announcements for SciADV—a new trailer and tentative release date for Anonymous;Code, an announcement of a Steins;Gate thematic sequel, and a new trailer for Steins;Gate 0 Elite. At the time, they announced that the release order for these three projects was going to be Steins;Gate 0 Elite, followed by Anonymous;Code, and then finally followed by the thematic sequel. In addition to that, they also provided somewhat conflicting information regarding how Steins;Gate 0 Elite would look.

During this livestream, series creator Chiyomaru Shikura indicated that Steins;Gate 0 Elite would feature route branching and additional animated content beyond what had been shown in the Steins;Gate 0 anime. This may have suggested that 0 Elite would not simply be the anime in visual novel form; rather, it would be something closer to the original visual novel but animated. Yet, immediately after this event, series producer Tatsuya Matsubara suggested that because the Steins;Gate 0 anime and Steins;Gate 0 visual novel were so different from one another, the approach they’d taken with Steins;Gate Elite would simply not be applicable to Steins;Gate 0 Elite. He instead suggested that it would likely just be the Steins;Gate 0 anime’s narrative in visual novel form.

I think it is technically possible to reconcile their two statements if their intention was to go for the same general route as the Steins;Gate 0 anime but with some new animation for completely original routes exclusive to Steins;Gate 0 Elite, rather than exact remakes of the routes from the original 0 visual novel. I imagine such an approach would result in the new routes being pretty short, though.

Steins;Gate 0 Elite concept art

Nonetheless, irrespective of which approach they were going to take with Steins;Gate 0 Elite, since October 2020, details on the game have ranged from sparse to nonexistent. And at this point, it’s been over five years since the game was originally announced. The most we’ve heard about Steins;Gate 0 Elite ever since was back in 2022, when Shikura tweeted a response to a question about the game; he indicated that he could not give out any details on the project at the time and encouraged fans to await official news on the matter. It has now been three years since that tweet.

That all leads us to the present day, where we’re sitting here and wondering, “What happened to Steins;Gate 0 Elite?” Has it been quietly canceled? Or are we just playing the waiting game for it like we are with Steins;Gate’s thematic sequel?

I guess only time will tell. There’s a number of other announced SciADV projects that have yet to see the light of day as of now. And there’s always the precedent of Anonymous;Code, which took seven years to release after its original announcement.

I guess if there is one potentially positive sign for Steins;Gate 0 Elite, it’s that NewGin’s Steins;Gate 0 pachinko machine from a few months ago features brand-new animation for Steins;Gate 0 that covers what was previously visual novel–exclusive content. So maybe that new animation could serve a dual purpose for Steins;Gate 0 Elite as well. But then again, Steins;Gate had its own pachinko machines, and MAGES. didn’t end up reusing any animation from those in Steins;Gate Elite. Nonetheless, the fact that they’ve made new Steins;Gate 0 animations at all is a positive sign.

In the first place, making just the anime’s route in visual novel form wouldn’t be that hard to do, so I can’t imagine it would be worthwhile to outright cancel the game. And heck, if they really wanted an easy Steins;Gate game to rake in some money, they could always make a “Load Region of Déjà Vu Elite,” where they use footage from the Egoistic Poriomania OVA and the Steins;Gate movie while utilizing the movie’s novelization as a base for most of the text. 

But alas, we continue to wait for that time when our delusions become reality and Steins;Gate 0 Elite comes to fruition.

Steins;Gate 0 Elite Official Screenshot

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