Steins;Gate being among my favorite visual novels, I had pretty high expectations for Steins;Gate 0… and to say that they were not met would be putting it lightly.

Release: 2018 (5pb. Games)
Writers: Hayashi Naotaka, Takimoto Masashi, Tsuchiya Tsukasa, Yasumoto Tooru
Japanese difficulty: Medium
English: 5pb. Games & Committee of Zero
Ratings: VNDB (8.21); EGS (8.00)

I imagined Steins;Gate 0 would be either a sequel or a prequel to Steins;Gate that told its own original story, but it actually turned out to, technically, take place between the start and the end of the true ending of the original game and more or less take thirty hours to retell the exact same story that the original did in one.

My entire reading experience of Steins;Gate 0 basically consisted of waiting for the good stuff to finally kick in, but whenever I felt that the moment was near, the credits would roll… and that turned out to be true even to the secret ending.

Steins;Gate was a very complete experience, and to put it frankly, Steins;Gate 0 feels completely unnecessary and adds nothing of note to it. It comes off like a soulless cash grab that the publishers made the author write at a gunpoint.

That said, it still has the cool old cast and retains the Steins;Gate atmosphere, so if you’re a really huge fan and want more of that universe, even if nothing of actual note happens there, you might still want to check it out.