Release date TBD
Price TBD
Director: Kotaro Uchikoshi
Character design: Rui Tomono
Sound: Shinji Hosoe
The concluding entry in the Zero Escape series is announced.
10 characters are announced in the game's spread.
The event scenes are now rendered in full 3D and referred to as the "Cinema" parts.
The article says "except where noted, images from the Vita version", but only one image doesn't have any kind of note and it doesn't show any characters...
Story:
Takes place about a year after 999. Nine days after a group of people start living in a facility in the Nevada Desert together as part of an experiment [REDACTED] and then the watches and so on.
Characters:
Three teams exist, the leaders of whom are the protagonists.
TEAM C:
Carlos: A hot-blooded man with a strong sense of justice, who cares deeply for his younger sister, who is suffering from an incurable disease.
Junpei: After the events of 999, he joined a detective agency to track down Akane, who had vanished completely. Currently technically "ran away from home".
Akane: Though she appears to be a proper young woman, her true personality is Machiavellian.
[Two characters from 999 in this group.]
TEAM D:
Diana: A pacifistic young woman who hates fighting. Works as a nurse.
Sigma: Although only 22 years old, he seems to have led a long and complicated life. Occasionally called "old man" by Phi.
Phi: A curt young woman who joined the DCOM experiment to save the world.
[Two characters from VLR in this group, with Diana holding Luna's pendant.]
TEAM Q:
Q: A young boy who has lost his memories and who is wearing a mysterious spherical helmet.
Eric: A young man working at an ice cream shop going out with Mila Mira.
Mila Mira: A sexual young woman going out with Eric.
OTHER:
Zero: An unknown person hiding their identity behind a mask and disguise, who seems to be controlling the deadly games. Their goal is unknown.
Gab: An old dog able to fit through air vents humans can't and travel between sections of the facility.
Interview:
An interview with Uchikoshi is included.
Initially the plan had been to develop 2 and 3 simultaneously, but after the 3DS and Vita were announced they decided to make 2 and see how it went.
Because sales and fan demand was so strong in the West, they were able to get 3 greenlit.
The title felt very 'clean' to him.
The game aims to make the player question what is "right".
The player will have to make extreme decisions where there is no right answer - hence the "dilemma" in the subtitle. These will have an effect on the endings and the game.
All the mysteries of the past games and ZE3 will be solved.
He feels the game is even better than the past two. The three protagonists know nothing, so they'll learn about the past games through dialogue.
For the extreme decisions, often times they'll be accompanied by scenes where someone's life is on the line.
Because they don't want to soften the content, the game may be rated Z (it would be the 3DS' first.)
This game is mostly serious, so he put a lot of his "jokes" into Punchline instead.
He had planned to ask Kinu Nishimura to return as character designer, but once he hammered out how ZE3 would differ from the past games he decided to change things up. This was also because they needed to make the backgrounds and characters more cinematic.
He feels all the characters, new and old, really have strong designs this time.
They aimed to make the event scenes feel like you were watching a drama.
No narration this time, though there will be a few "tricks"...
It'll be a game you can enjoy standalone and the pinnacle of the series.
The reason for multiple protagonists was to show the tensions and killings between teams from many viewpoints, and they initially considered making Sigma a protag. If the player follows the route where he winds up like in VLR, something terrible may happen...
