Sitting down at Spike Chunsoft’s Anime Expo 2026 panel, you’d be forgiven for having a sense of Deja Vu. The company has always been one to save announcements for Anime Expo since establishing their western branch, but this year’s panel was headlined by precisely two games, both remakes of Anime Expo heavy-hitters of the past. Steins;Gate has had a long, storied history with the convention, even down to the OVA added to the anime adaptation, including shots of Los Angeles that were clearly based on photos that the team had taken from a trip to the expo. Danganronpa characters, of course, have been a mainstay for cosplayers over the years, a lineage that has only continued with Tookyo Games’ own The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy since its launch last year.
That legacy for both games wasn’t just subtext at the panel, but was even acknowledged by Spike Chunsoft themselves. Over a decade ago, Andrew Hodgson and H. Anthony Israel worked together to help translate Steins;Gate as fans, before being approached by JAST USA to have their work canonized as the game’s first official localization. Over a decade later, the pair returned to help Spike Chunsoft translate the remake and its new content, bringing things full circle for a journey that started in the same circles that made conventions like Anime Expo a communal affair in the first place.
No AI in Steins;Gate Re:Boot
For Steins;Gate Re:Boot, the game features redrawn art and new, animated portraits. The game’s script is based off of the game’s first remake, Steins;Gate Elite, a re-release that replaced the game’s original art with clips from the acclaimed anime adaptation, albeit with some returning text that was excised from that release, as well as a brand new scenario loosely based off of an existing drama CD that had expanded the game’s original lore, revolving around a series’ mainstay character Kiryu Moeka.
Rounding out the announcements was the reveal that Steins;Gate Octet of Shifting Space, an epilogue for the game’s original true ending portrayed via a Japanese retro PC aesthetic, a title that hasn’t seen a re-release in the last 15 years. They also proudly revealed that Re:Boot wasn’t developed with any AI, which was met with thunderous applause and celebration.
As for Danganronpa, Spike Chunsoft also blew the lid off to detail exactly what is new for Danganronpa 2×2, a remake of the PlayStation Portable–and, for the western audience, PlayStation Vita–classic. Beyond the normal campaign, which has seen a fresh coat of paint and a few gameplay changes (including a complete overhaul of the world map), we finally got a better idea of what’s going on with the second, additional scenario included with the game.
A new Danganronpa 2 scenario worth waiting for
The Slayhem Scenario, as the team calls it, is a brand new story revolving around the same characters, and was written in collaboration with series’ creator Kazutaka Kodaka. This new scenario is 20 percent longer than the original story, and while it’s available from the start, the team highly recommends that players play the original story first. Slayhem is considered the main focus for Danganronpa 2×2 as a project.
It’s not all good news, unfortunately. While originally scheduled for a 2026 release, Danganronpa 2×2 has seen a slight delay to Early 2027. On one hand, I can appreciate not having to worry about the potential for yet another September release like I had been dreading for the past few weeks; on the other hand, February has been getting pretty stacked, too. Spike Chunsoft was actually pretty worried about how the room would take the news, but to everyone’s credit it landed pretty well when all was said and done. Kodaka suggested that if players are worried about the delay, they can just play Grand Theft Auto VI, The Hundred Line, or Shuten Order in order to help make it feel shorter.
As far as news, that’s all we have to share. There were a few funny Q&A questions which Kodaka answered, such as how Monokuma’s design was dreamt up by envisioning a Teddy Bear merged with one of those pictures of Spiderman and Venom presented in cross-section, or how Danganronpa 2‘s new cast of characters was inspired by how Resident Evil 2 introduced its own fresh cast back in the day. At the end of the day, Spike Chunsoft’s panel felt special to someone like me who has spent the last decade attending the show–bridging the gap and bringing the series’ that otaku of the past grew up on to a brand new generation.
