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| Peter Triezenberg |
Some familiar faces and some new ones. What secrets do they hold?
03.15.16 - 2:13 AM
Weekly Famitsu has unveiled the participants of Zero Time Dilemma, the latest entry in the Zero Escape series and follow-up to the excellent Virtue's Last Reward. Rui Tomono is handling the design of these characters, who are trapped in a nuclear bomb shelter and must play a death game in order to survive. Some are familiar and some are new, but no doubt they all have secrets to uncover. They are:
- Carlos: a hot-blooded man with a strong sense of justice, who dotes on his younger sister as she has a terminal disease.
- Akane: She appears to be a neat and clean woman, but she specializes in trickery.
- Junpei: After 999, he joined a detective agency to pursue Akane. Currently a runaway.
- Q: A boy who has lost his memory and wears a mask resembling a pig's head.
- Eric: Works at a ice cream shop and is dating Mira.
- Mira: A "sexily shaped" woman who is dating Eric.
- Diana: A nurse who doesn't like fighting
- Phi: A blunt woman participating in the "Dcom" experiment in order to save the world.
- Sigma: Despite only being 22, Phi sometimes calls him an old man. He's walked into a bizarre life.
Other characters include the eponymous Zero, who serves as the ringleader of the death game, and Gab, a dog(!) who can fit into air ducts that the human characters cannot. Zero Time Dilemma takes place a year after the events of 999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors, at the Dcom facility in the Nevada desert. The "game" in question this time involves finding six passwords in order to open the facility door. However, a death is required with each password. Who lives, and who dies, is in the player's hands.
December 31, 2028—Nevada desert.
It was six days since the start of cohabitation in the experimental facility Dcom.
That day, they woke up, and nine men and women were in confinement.
On my left wrist was a black bracelet I'd never seen before—a bangle.
Then a person wearing a mask showed up, and announced the start of the the Decision game.
"The survival of all of you, me, and the human race hangs on this game."
After that, they were transported to an underground shelter, and divided and admitted into three sections—C, Q, and D.
Which team will survive?
The future of all humanity—all eight billion people—rests on their Decision.
According to the game's director, Kotaro Uchikoshi, the reason the Japanese title no longer reads "Extreme Escape" is to make the overseas "Zero Escape" moniker the banner of the series. The meaning of the subtitle is "what is the right thing," and there will be an "ultimate choice" that will be presented to the player. The scene in which the ultimate choice takes place is apparently quite intense, with Uchikoshi joking that this may be the first "Z-rated" title for 3DS and saying that he didn't want to soften the game's presentation for the sake of age regulations. Development of the game is currently 80% complete.
Also, it would seem that all mysteries from the previous two games will be solved in Zero Time Dilemma. The game launched on 3DS and Vita later this year. We'll be seeing a first official trailer on March 17th.
