What is Zero Time Dilemma? Everything You Need to Know

What is This?

Let’s get this out of the way: no, you can’t play Zero Time Dilemma without having first played the first two games in the series, 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward. Well, you can if you really want to, but a lot of the references and character appearances will be lost on you. If you want to get the true Zero Escape experience, play the first two games. Trust me, it’s worth it.

Zero Time Dilemma is a puzzle game that will put you in control of different characters as you work your way through a series of locked room puzzles. If the first two games were any indication, the puzzles in this one will be pretty challenging, and will require you to make connections between clues and figure out the method to opening up that locked door. In these puzzle sequences, you’ll have to point and click at objects of interest and see if you can turn up any new clues. There are usually multiple steps you have to take in order to open the door, and the clues you get might not always be the right ones you need at that point in time. It’s up to you to make sense of these clues and make use of them at the right puzzles.

When you’re not solving puzzles, Zero Time Dilemma will play out like a regular visual novel. You’ll be treated to fully voiced cutscenes as the story unfolds, and sometimes, you’ll even get to make decisions that can change the course of the story. Similar to Virtue’s Last Reward, this game will feature a flowchart showing you exactly where the different events fit in, making it easier to make sense of the story.

What’s new in Zero Time Dilemma is that you’ll be randomly dropped into seemingly disconnected stories in the game. You might witness the conclusion of one group’s story, not understand what the heck’s going on, and then dropped into the beginning of that same story a few chapters later. This is where the flowchart comes in handy, as it’ll help you piece together the timeline of the story. According to series creator Kotaro Uchikoshi, the outcomes for certain decisions you make in the story will be randomized as well. In some released footage of the game, there is a scenario where a character has to fire a gun at an ally. The gun contains three blanks and three live rounds, meaning there’s a 50% chance of killing the ally. However, if you choose to shoot, the outcome will be random, so there’s really no way of knowing which is the correct decision to make, since you never know what’s going to happen next.

Also, there’s a lot of crazy time travel/quantum physics/Schrodinger’s Cat/superposition/morphogenetic field stuff going on.

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.

When is It Out?

The Zero Escape series wasn’t really a big hit in the west, and Uchikoshi himself said that there was a possibility this third and final entry might not ever get made. Thankfully, that isn’t the case. Zero Time Dilemma is set to be released for the Nintendo 3DS and PS Vita on June 28 in North America. It will also be released on PC via Steam on June 30.

So, are you ready to seek a way out? Let us know in the comments down below.