Setting and themes Steins;Gate is set in the summer of 2010, approximately one year after the events that took place in
Chaos;Head, in
Akihabara. Physical locales of Akihabara like the
Radio Kaikan building can be spotted in the game. According to Chiyomaru Shikura, who headed the planning of
Steins;Gate, Akihabara was chosen because it is an easy place for acquiring hardware parts, which makes it the ideal place for people interested in inventing and tinkering with things. The notion of
time and
time traveling are the main themes of the game. The concept of
cause and effect is featured prominently in the game as the protagonist travels back in time numerous times to perform different actions in an attempt to alter what has happened in the future.
Characters ; : :The player assumes the role of
Rintaro Okabe, the protagonist of
Steins;Gate. Okabe is an eccentric individual, a self-proclaimed
mad scientist who often goes by the
pseudonym ''''''. alongside being the founder of what he calls the in Akihabara, where he spends most of his time and has dubbed himself Lab Member No. 001 (as he is the first person to join). Okabe gives off the appearance of being delusional and paranoid, frequently referring to the "Organization" that is after him, talking to himself on his phone, and engaging in fits of
maniacal laughter. He is frequently mocked for this behavior, mostly by Kurisu and Itaru, and referred to as a
chunibyou, although as the story progresses, he mellows out and shows that deep down he is a kind-hearted and loyal friend, only playing up the Hououin Kyouma personality as both a form of entertainment and a way to guise his insecurities. As he experiments with time travel, he learns that he is the only one who possesses the ability to determine changes between different timelines, which he dubs "Reading Steiner"; the reasoning behind this is never explained in-universe, although it is implied that a fever he had as a child during the Y2K crisis had something to do with it. ; :Kurisu is the main heroine of the game and Lab Member No. 004. She is an 18-year-old neuroscience researcher at an
American university who can speak and read
English well. Having had her research published in the
academic journal Science at this age, Kurisu is extremely talented. She had skipped a grade in the American school system. Okabe simply tends to call her or one of the several nicknames he comes up with, such as , "the Zombie", and "Celeb Sev", which bugs her to varying degrees. She is something of a mild
tsundere, although she will object to it whenever someone (usually Itaru) calls her that. She does not get along with her father and has not spoken to him in many years. She posts on @chan (the game's in-universe version of
2channel) under the name "KuriGohan and Kamehameha"; the alias also makes a cameo on Kaito Yashio's PokeCom tablet in episode 9 of
Robotics;Notes. ; :Mayuri is a long-time childhood best friend of Okabe and is a bit of an airhead, as well as Lab Member No. 002. Mayuri enjoys creating
cosplay costumes and has a part-time job at a
maid café called "MayQueen NyanNyan". She often calls herself , a
portmanteau of her given name and surname, which is also what Itaru calls her. She has a distinctive sing-song way of speaking, and she typically sings when she arrives or introduces herself. Several years prior she lost her grandmother under unknown circumstances, and to prevent her from succumbing to grief, Okabe declared her his "hostage", his entire eccentric persona being for her sake. She is 16 years old and she is a second-year at a private university preparatory school. ; :Itaru is an experienced
hacker who has known Okabe since high school and is Lab Member No. 003. He is very skilled in computer programming and with old and new
computer hardware. He is also well-versed in things on
otaku culture. He appears in
Robotics;Notes as DaSH, and as a main character in its sequel,
Robotics;Notes DaSH. ; :Moeka is a tech journalist searching for the
IBN 5100 "retro PC", and is Lab Member No. 005. Moeka is extremely protective of her mobile phone and becomes agitated if someone tries to take it from her hands. She is very shy and prefers to talk to someone by sending them a text message instead of speaking, even if they are right in front of her. Okabe calls her . She is 20 years old. ; :Luka is a friend of Okabe and Lab Member No. 006. His appearance and mannerisms are quite feminine as a result of his upbringing. He is also a close friend and classmate of Mayuri, who often asks him to try on her cosplay costumes, but as he is quite shy, he generally refuses. Okabe calls him by a feminine nickname: , and thinks of Luka as his pupil. He is 16 years old. ; / :Faris NyanNyan works at the
maid cafe "MayQueen+Nyan²" (pronounced "Mayqueen Nyan Nyan"), the same maid cafe that Mayuri works at, and is the most popular waitress there, as well as Lab Member No. 007. Her real name is Akiha Rumiho. Her family owns Akihabara, and she was the driving force behind it becoming the city of moe and anime. She tends to add to her sentences. She is 17 years old. ; : Suzuha works part-time for the landlord of Okabe's apartment and is on a search for her father in Akihabara, and is Lab Member No. 008. She enjoys riding her bicycle and appears to be at odds with Kurisu for some reason. Later it is discovered that she is actually the time traveler known as
John Titor, and the future daughter of Itaru, her real name being . She is 18 years old. She is the main protagonist of the side-story manga,
Steins;Gate: Bōkan no Rebellion. ; : Yugo is Okabe's landlord, who owns a TV repair store beneath his apartment, living with his daughter, Nae. Okabe gives him the nickname "Mr. Braun" due to his passion for
CRT TVs (known in Japan as "Braun-tube TVs"). He is usually rough and impatient, especially when interacting with Okabe, but acts dotingly over his daughter and his TVs. He is the protagonist of the side-story manga,
Steins;Gate: Onshū no Braunian Motion. ; :Yugo's daughter who lives with him in the TV repair store and gets along well with Mayuri and Suzuha, but is afraid of Okabe. She later appears in
Robotics;Notes as a member of
JAXA. ; :Kurisu's father and the overarching antagonist of the series. His obsession to outshine his daughter in the field of science ends up leading into World War III. His real name is .
Plot True End route The following summary is based upon the True End route.
Steins;Gate takes place in the
Akihabara district of
Tokyo. On July 28, 2010, Okabe Rintaro and his friend Shiina Mayuri head towards the Radio Kaikan building for a conference, where Okabe finds a girl named Makise Kurisu lying in a pool of blood. As Okabe sends a text message about the incident to his friend, Hashida "Daru" Itaru, he experiences a strange phenomenon and the people around him disappear, with no one else noticing anything had changed. After later running into Kurisu, who is strangely alive and well, and discovering the message he had sent to Itaru had arrived a week before he sent it, Okabe soon deduces that the 'PhoneWave' he and his friends had been developing is, in fact, a time machine capable of sending text messages to the past. He and his friends soon learn that SERN (based on the real-life
CERN), an organization that has been researching time travel for some time, has actually succeeded in sending humans into the past, although they seem to have all resulted in the test subjects' deaths. Okabe begins experimenting with , which begin to cause major differences in the timeline. Kurisu also manages to create a device to send a person's memories through the microwave, allowing that person to effectively leap into the past. However, SERN learns of the time machine and sends a group led by Moeka to retrieve it and killing Mayuri in the process. Using Kurisu's time leap machine, Okabe travels back in time numerous times to try to save Mayuri, but to no avail. As Okabe reaches wit's end, he is approached by Amane Suzuha, a girl from a future ruled by SERN due to their possession of a time machine, who tells him that he needs to return to a Beta
worldline in which Mayuri won't die. By undoing the effects of the D-Mails that caused shifts in the timeline, Okabe regains possession of an
IBN 5100 PC that they lost earlier, allowing them to crack into SERN's systems and delete the evidence of Okabe's original D-Mail. However, Okabe realizes that by doing so, he would have to return to a world line in which Kurisu is dead. After realizing their feelings for each other, Kurisu tells Okabe to save Mayuri. Reluctantly, Okabe agrees and deletes the evidence of his D-Mail from SERN's database, returning him to the Beta world line, where Kurisu died as she did at the start of the story, and the rest of the cast, sans Okabe, do not remember that anything had happened. A couple days later, an alternate world line variant of Suzuha appears before Okabe, having arrived in a time machine from the future. She tells Okabe that the only way to prevent
World War III in the future is to prevent Kurisu's death at the hands of her father, Dr. Nakabachi, who stole her time travel theory to publish it under his own name. However, this operation ends in a disaster as Okabe ends up killing Kurisu himself by mistake. After this failure, Okabe receives a message from his
future self, telling him that the way to save Kurisu without altering the events that led to him developing a time machine is to fool his past self into believing Kurisu had been killed and thus achieving the final divergence value of 1.048596%, which he dubs 'Steins Gate'. Returning to the past again, Okabe puts his own life in danger in order to save Kurisu's life, prevent Nakabachi from successfully escaping with the time travel theory, and fool his past self, setting him on his journey through time. After this, Okabe returns to the Steins Gate world line, safe from the threat of a third world war. Later, Okabe and Kurisu manage to reunite by chance (or by fate) in the streets of Akihabara, with Kurisu appearing to possess some lingering memories of their history together.
Alternate endings The player's choices throughout the game results in
alternate endings. • In the Amane Suzuha Ending, Okabe decides to not send the D-Mail that would prevent him from pursuing Suzuha. To prevent Mayuri's death, he re-lives the final two days before her murder through constant time-leaping. After countless leaps, Okabe loses all emotion and personality due to re-living the same two days for all eternity. Eventually, Suzuha notices Okabe's behavior. She tells him that he will slowly "die" on the inside, and the world's set divergence will continue as planned. Both of them decide to travel to the past together and vow to stop SERN's dystopian future, despite the possibility of both losing their memories on arrival. • In the Faris NyanNyan Ending, Okabe decides to not send the D-Mail that results in the death of Faris's father to try to stop the loss of the IBN 5100 computer. He instead sends a different D-Mail in an attempt to convince Faris's father to not part with the IBN computer. Beyond 1% divergence is achieved, but the divergence meter gives a strange output and none of Okabe's friends have any memories of him. In this worldline, Okabe and Faris are a couple and live together, participating in
RaiNet Access Battlers card game tournaments. Although disappointed that none of his friends remember him, Okabe is still satisfied that he was able to prevent Mayuri's death. He decides to build a new life with Faris at his side. • In the Urushibara Luka Ending, Okabe decides to not send the D-Mail that reverts Luka to a guy. He fully accepts Mayuri's expected death and makes no more attempts to save her and they spend the last two days together before she dies of a heart attack. Okabe and Luka decide to spend the rest of their lives together, both of them sharing a pang of guilt and sadness that only they would understand. In a post-credit scene they are revealed to now have a child together. • In the Shiina Mayuri Ending, Okabe must choose between saving Mayuri or Kurisu. Realizing that he harbors romantic feelings for Mayuri, Okabe and Kurisu decide to return to the Beta worldline in which Kurisu's murder continues as planned. After hacking into SERN's database with the IBN computer, a 1% divergence is achieved. Okabe vows to remember his memories of Kurisu and spends his time with Mayuri as lovers. • The Makise Kurisu Ending follows a similar route to the True End. To achieve this ending, one must have had several conversations with Kurisu throughout the game. Doing so allows Okabe and Kurisu to realize their inner feelings for each other. Unlike the True End, Kurisu's death is not prevented after the credits; Suzuha never returns and it is implied that this world will eventually meet the fate of World War III. ==Production==