The Story So Far
If you’re planning on checking out 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward, feel free to skip this page entirely, as it’ll be full of spoilers from the first two games. Or, if you’re looking for a brief rundown of what’s going on in the story, this should give you some idea of the plot setup before the events of Zero Time Dilemma.
Since the events of 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors, Junpei has been trying to track down his childhood friend Akane, who was also revealed to be the culprit behind the second Nonary Game that we were a part of in 999. In Virtue’s Last Reward, we find out that Junpei essentially spent his entire life looking for her, and we see him appear as an old man with nothing to show for it. Virtue’s Last Reward also revealed the existence of the Radical-6 disease and how it wiped out the entire planet Earth in the year 2028.
The events of Virtue’s Last Reward took place in 2074, years after the Radical-6 outbreak. Phi, Sigma, and the other participants of the third Nonary Game had been kidnapped in 2028, and then frozen till 2074 when the game started. However, Sigma was different. He had his 2028 consciousness transported to the future, where his mind inhabited the body of his older self. Akane reveals herself at the end of the game, and tells them that the plan was to send the older consciousnesses of Phi and Sigma back to their younger selves in 2028 so that they could stop the virus outbreak. In the original timeline, Sigma sent his older consciousness back in time so that his younger self could begin working on the AB Project and the Nonary Game to prepare for that plan.
Now that the Nonary Game is complete, it is time for Phi and Sigma to jump back in time to their younger selves, and infiltrate the Mars facility to stop the Radical-6 outbreak.
In Zero Time Dilemma, we’ll likely be following the story of how Phi and Sigma attempt to stop the outbreak in 2028. However, we also see the appearance of a few familiar faces. A slightly older version of Junpei shows up, clearly hardened from the events of 999. A young version of Akane also makes an appearance, though her motives remain a mystery, as expected. But most interestingly, we’ll also get to see Diana. As fans of Virtue’s Last Reward will know, Diana is the woman that the android nurse Luna was modeled on. Diana also happens to be kind of responsible for the Radical-6 outbreak in the original timeline, so it should be interesting to see how she interacts with Phi and Sigma.
The other four characters are new, though it’s possible that we may have already guessed the identity to one of them. There is a young boy named Q, and he wears a giant helmet covering his face. Huh. Looks kinda like this other young boy from Virtue’s Last Reward whose name also started with Q. But what do I know? There are tons of fan theories and speculation that 999 characters Snake and Santa could make an appearance in Zero Time Dilemma too, but all that is up in the air for now.
