Zero Escape 3 Announced, Virtue’s Last Reward Sequel
We mentioned Zero Escape 3 in our Anime Expo 2015 Visual Novel round-up, but it’s such a big deal to us we want to let you know the full scoop. We’re big fans of Visual Novels in general here, but 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward are two of our favourites. Naturally we were surprised and overjoyed to hear about the existence of a new entry into the series, Zero Escape 3, which will be set on Mars in a testing facility.
Kotaro Uchikoshi revealed the game himself at his Anime Expo 2015 panel, talking about some of the details but still leaving a lot as a mystery so far. Aksys, the game’s publishers opened by telling the audience: “A group of people will find themselves in the Mars test facility–a facility that will be testing the logistics of a colony living on Mars, and also the psychology of what might ensue between this group of people and their interactions while living on this enclosed colony space.”
The above key art is the only image revealed of the Zero Escape 3 so far, and shows two of the characters from the game.
Uchikoshi also told us that originally 999 was meant to be a standalone story, but after its success in Japan he devised two more “volumes” which he hoped could be developed near-simultaneously. After Virtue’s Last Reward didn’t perform as well as 999, the third project was shelved. But now it has been revived, perhaps in part thanks to the increased worldwide success of visual novels in the past year or so, with games such as Steins;Gate and Danganronpa defying expectation.
Interestingly at the end of the panel Danganronpa writer Kazutaka Kodaka took to the stage and spoke about his friendship with Uchikoshi, and called Zero Escape 3, which he knows most of the details about, “out of this world”.
You can watch the panel here:
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