The description of the panel reads: “Spike Chunsoft partnered up with MAGES./5pb. to bring STEINS;GATE ELITE to the West for PS4, Nintendo Switch, and Steam! Sit down with the team as they talk all things STEINS;GATE and Science Adventure.“

While it’s a bit disappointing that only Steins;Gate Elite was showcased at the event, we hope that continued fan support and enthusiasm will allow for more Science Adventure titles to be released in the West in the future.

Highlights of the panel include the announcement that Steins;Gate Elite’s English localization will release in early 2019. It was reaffirmed that Steins;Gate Linear Bounded Phenogram will be included with all PlayStation 4 and Steam purchases for their respective platforms, and that the new 8-bit title will be included with all Nintendo Switch purchases. It was noted that the Elite will stay true to the original game’s heroine endings, and that the game will not reuse footage of the heroine endings from the Steins;Gate pachinko machines.

During the panel, Matsubara had a few interesting comments regarding the creation of Steins;Gate Elite. He noted that an exact remake of the original game wouldn’t be fun for them to create, so the team changed various aspects of Elite. He mentioned some of the difficulties in adapting Steins;Gate into a 23 episode timespan, and the necessity of cutting certain aspects to allow it to fit an anime timeslot. Examples include 4°C and the Viral Attackers, characters that were cut from the adaptation due to time constraints.

Matsubara mentioned that the team also conducted an in-depth analysis of all 80,000 lines in the original Steins;Gate script. A majority of the script remains unchanged for Elite, but certain aspects of it were changed to fix contradictions and allow for better flow. According to Matsubara, this was a time-consuming process that took over half a year alone, the same amount of time it took to write the original game’s scenario.