Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma

About Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma

Zero Time Dilemma was developed by Chime and written and directed by series creator Kotaro Uchikoshi. Spike Chunsoft publishes it on Steam worldwide, and Aksys Games published the console versions in North America and Europe. It came out in June 2016 on Windows, Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita, then on PlayStation 4 in August 2017 and on Xbox One, Series X|S and the Microsoft Store in 2022. It concludes the series begun by Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and Virtue's Last Reward, bringing back characters from both alongside a new cast, and the store says first-time players are brought up to speed.

Nine participants awaken in an underground facility, a nuclear bomb shelter split into three wards, each with a strange black bracelet on the wrist. A figure in a plague doctor's mask called Zero explains the rules of the Decision Game: after six people are killed, the escape hatch will open. They are split into three teams, C, Q and D, and at times the group votes on which team is executed.

You play in two ways. In escape sections you explore 3D rooms in first person for clues, examine and combine items in your inventory, and solve puzzles such as letter locks and code panels to get out. In story sections, told in fully voiced, animated scenes in English or Japanese, the game stops at decisions: some on a countdown, some asking you to type the name of who will die. The story is cut into fragments of about 90 minutes that you choose in any order, and each one you finish takes its place on a flowchart that shows where it falls in the timeline and where branches split.

The horror is in those choices and their results, which are shown with blood and little mercy, and in not knowing whom to trust. Compared with the earlier two games it leans more on animated scenes than on reading, and the out-of-order fragments make you piece together what happened yourself. HowLongToBeat puts the main story at about 21 hours. It suits players who finished The Nonary Games, and anyone who likes escape-room puzzles with a grim death-game story around them.

How to play Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma

1. Pick a story fragment from one of the three teams on the Fragment Select screen.
2. In escape rooms, examine the surroundings, collect items and combine them in the item menu, and solve the puzzles to get out.
3. When a decision comes, choose, sometimes against a countdown; the result changes the story.
4. Use the flowchart to see where each fragment falls and return to earlier points to take the other branches toward more endings.

Tips

• Play The Nonary Games first if you can; this game concludes their story.
• Read every note and check every object in escape rooms; clues are often small.
• Expect bad outcomes; seeing a branch through often reveals what you need elsewhere.
• Keep paper handy for puzzle codes and numbers.

Questions