I expected that the news will eventually reach MAL too (I didn't want to post it since it has 0 relevance for the anime). I'd like to add some points here as someone who not just loves Steins;Gate, but familiar with the broader Science Adventure series as well. So what can this Re:Boot mean for the franchise overall from financial and storytelling perspective?
Let's start with financial... This is Steins;Gate we are talking about, one of the most valuable IPs of Mages (if not the most). On October 27th, and event called Steins;Gate: One World was held in Tokyo to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Steins;Gate's release. They made 165 million yen operating profit of this event alone. That's about half of a production budget of a one cour anime, and this was just one event. Releasing another edition of Steins;Gate would be hella profitable for them. Not to mention that this is a great opportunity that a potential western release could have an English dub - just Anonymous;Code also had. So more people could be introduced into this medium. I know a lot of people who doesn't like Japanese voice acting and they are only watching dubbed anime - and the reason they don't read visual novels is because of the lack of an English dub. So this is actually a very great opportunity for Mages to bring in new audience. I believe the release of this would stabilize the financial situation of the company, which is, as we know, not very great recently:
https://www.kirikiribasara.com/2022/12/27/science-adventure-series-developer-mages-enters-financial-insolvency/
And then, let's talk about the storytelling perspective...
Unfortunately I have to put the rest behind spoiler tags, only read this if you have read all the rest of Science Adventure series, or if you are not bothered by spoilers for any reasons)
I have to tell, knowing Mages, that I personally believe that the scenario I desribed above is very unlikely, and this will be really just a cashgrab remake like Steins;Gate Elite was. But we have to wait and see what is the direction they are going.
As for the "new additional story elements", there are certainly some side materials that would be really great to see incorporated into the main story of the VN:
- Hyde of the Dark Dimension manga & drama CD - this was based on a Moeka route that was cut out from the original VN, I think this would be a great opportunity to add a Moeka route based on this material
- there are some really juicy lore stuff in materials like Ouroborous (light novel retelling of Steins;Gate) which would be really great to see in this remake.
As for the question in the original post:
xZabuzax said:So what about you, will you play it?
Eventually, I will. As a dedicated fan of SciADV, I will buy this VN as well, just like I bought every other VN in the franchise, including Steins;Gate Elite (even though I never got to play Elite so far, but eventually, I will). By the time it releases in the west, we will know how the scenario I described in the spoiler played out. If that's the direction they take, I will play it on Day 1. If not, then probably later.