Part of the Science Adventure multimedia series and released in 2009, Steins;Gate is the acclaimed visual novel that introduced us to the iconic Mad Scientist Okabe Rintaro and made Dr Pepper fans of us all. To celebrate the addition of Steins;Gate to the Crunchyroll Game Vault, Anime Trending spoke with producer Tatsuya Matsubara about the game’s development, its legacy, and how the landscape of visual novels has changed in the past 15 years.
Thank you very much for joining us for this interview. Steins;Gate is 15 years old now. How do you feel about its reception back then, and how do you feel now regarding its current legacy and its impact both in Japan and overseas?
Tatsuya Matsubara: As you mentioned, Steins;Gate is a franchise that is 15 years old. Back in those days, the Japanese visual novel genre was kind of picking up. It was becoming popular. But despite that, if you had sold 30,000 units of a game, it was considered a mega-hit in the visual novel space. So, we released Steins;Gate initially on the Xbox 360, and very quickly we achieved this 30,000 unit benchmark. We were celebrating in the office. But slowly, I think people started to spread the word, and then it started climbing up 50,000, 60,000 units. That’s when the anime adaptation was decided. I think with the anime, that’s when the franchise [became] major and mainstream in terms of the anime space and the game space.
Then, we were able to port the game — the visual novel — to many different consoles and ultimately did more than 100,000 units, which was unheard of at the time. That triggered the overseas launch, which was also received very well. It’s a very flattering experience to be part of that.
Before working at MAGES, I was working at a different company. I remember in my interview at MAGES, they had asked me, “What is it that you want to do at this company?” And I said, “Well, I want to make a game that has some kind of impact in the world.” So I guess you could say that that comment kind of manifested itself in the form of Steins;Gate.
You mentioned the Xbox 360. Steins;Gate was first released on the 360, and in 2009, you said that the console was chosen due to it “enabling production not to worry about the limits on freedom of expression,” and also because Chaos;Head Noah had performed well on the platform. But things were different for Steins;Gate 0 and Steins;Gate Elite, which didn’t launch initially on an Xbox console like the original Steins;Gate or Steins;Gate: My Darling’s Embrace. Can you share the reasons behind the evolution of the series’s release plans?
Tatsuya Matsubara: At the time, the Xbox 360 afforded more latitude in terms of freedom of expression: what we wanted to put on the screen and the type of stories we wanted to tell. And of course, Japan has a rating agency like the ESRB in the States. It’s called the CERO in Japan. You need to get a rating from that agency to sell your game. However, before that, you have to get approval from the first party, the hardware makers, in terms of what type of game you want to release on their platform. At the time — given the landscape — the Xbox 360 just had more freedom in that respect. Fast forward to today, and as long as you have a CERO rating, I think all consoles are treated a little more equally in sort of what’s allowed and what’s not. But at the same time, I think between 15 years ago and now, there’s been a shift in the balance of the different consoles, the installed user bases, and — especially when releasing a retail packaged version — retailers will take on more units depending on what platform it’s on. So, I think there was a shift in the landscape between 2009 and more recently today, which drove a lot of our business decisions.
What led to the decision to add the game to the Crunchyroll Game Vault?
Tatsuya Matsubara: To be perfectly honest, my boss is the one who made that decision, so I can’t go into too many details, because I simply don’t know. But from what I heard, the Crunchyroll team was quite passionate about having Steins;Gate on their platform. The deal was struck, and it was very highly rated on their platform. So that’s how the decision was made to port it to Game Vault.
Steins;Gate comes from a period where internet slang like “Nullpo” and “Jouko” existed, and new technology was booming. However, a lot has changed since then with smartphones and social media, and the implementation of AI. If the visual novel was made in the 2020s, what do you think it would feature and why?
Tatsuya Matsubara: Certainly, I think if we were to create Steins;Gate in this day and age, we would take into account a lot of the more modern scientific trends and developments. Having said that, Steins;Gate always tries to project a slight, near-future type of science world as opposed to the present. Even the themes of AI, we’ve explored in Steins;Gate 0 through Amadeus and quantum computing through Anonymous;Code. My belief is the next trend — or what we’re on the brink of — is nanomaterials. I think that’s getting a lot of attention in the scientific community right now. There are new materials that are extremely light, yet extremely strong. If you can mass produce these types of materials, I think that would open up possibilities to space elevators, and they have properties that a lot of other materials do not. They can transmit at the speed of light or conduct heat in ways that other materials really can’t. So, I think trying to imagine and depict that future would be really, really fun for a Steins;Gate if we were to make it in this day and age.
I’d like to ask a game mechanics question. How hard was it to implement the phone mechanic into the story? It seems like kind of a bit of a nightmare given how hard it is to get all the right flags for the true ending.
Tatsuya Matsubara: I would say the cell phone mechanic itself is quite different from a lot of others. It’s not necessarily difficult to implement the mechanic or the system itself. The Steins;Gate series of games takes place from Okabe’s point of view, but the trick for us was almost overlapping Okabe’s point of view with that of the players and bridging that gap. I would say that was the bigger challenge of the two: making the player believe that they are in some ways overlapping with Okabe. I think that is the true essence of the mechanic.
I think the idea of the cell phone oftentimes in visual novels — on a very fundamental level — is that players have choices, and choices cause branches, and that leads you to different endings or different stories. But in Steins;Gate, there wasn’t an active choice mechanic per se. It was about how the player used the cell phone interface to communicate with or contact the world itself. So, I think it was a much more natural expression of how you can branch off into different timelines and stories.
Speaking of the different endings, unlike the anime which you know has to choose one ending, the original Steins;Gate has a bunch of different endings. Do you have a personal favorite?
Tatsuya Matsubara: I think we touched on it a little earlier, but because Steins;Gate is a visual novel in which you can actually not make a single choice through a playthrough. Oftentimes the player will run into Suzuha’s bad ending on their first playthrough. [The ending] where she’s saying, “Oh, I failed, I failed.” I think that really left an impression on me, because going through this game without a single interaction with the world will lead to this bad ending. But in some ways, witnessing that bad ending and seeing what kind of bad future that would entail motivates you to go back and make a second attempt. I think that that ending really kind of triggers something and leaves a strong impression.
Steins;Gate is also known for its numerous collaborations with its series and products. Recently announced, for example, is the Monogatari and Steins;Gate Collaboration Cafe. How are some of these ideas conceived, and what’s the process of choosing who to work with?
Tatsuya Matsubara: The Monogatari series collaboration happened because we happened to have someone on staff who was a huge fan of the Monogatari series. And if you look back, the Monogatari series, like Steins;Gate, is also looking at its 15-year anniversary. I think there was a lot of alignment on the anniversary timing. But also, in terms of world building and world setting, Monogatari is very much rooted in more of an occult type of superstitious space, whereas Steins;Gate is rooted more in science. So, it might seem different at first glance, but I think it’s a very interesting perspective to kind of see both of these contrasting views collaborating in one space.
Likewise, the character designer for the Monogatari series, Akio Watanabe and I are friends. That also led to the collaboration. We also thought that fans would be kind of surprised and shocked by this collaboration. So, I think kind of keeping the fans a little off guard was part of the intent as well.
It definitely caught me and one of my friends off guard, seeing that announcement. He’s a pretty big Monogatari fan.
Tatsuya Matsubara: I’m glad to hear.
It would be a bit of an understatement to say that Steins;Gate features a wide variety of unique characters. Who is your personal favorite?
Tatsuya Matsubara: Originally, I would say it’s Mayuri because Kurisu was actually a sub-character, a supporting character. The concept for the game originated from the idea of saving Mayuri through this time loop, and Kurisu was almost there to support this. But as the game continued to develop and the story developed, Kurisu became more and more like a heroine of this particular franchise. So if you ask me now, I’d have to say Kurisu.
Thank you so much for your time!
Special thanks to Crunchyroll for the interview opportunity.
Interview conducted by James Mizutani on October 9th, 2024. Questions contributed by Melvyn Tan, James Mizutani, Agnes Nguyen, and Jacob Parker-Dalton.
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