The story is seen from several characters' viewpoints, mainly the protagonist of the original game Rintaro Okabe, Amane Suzuha, and the neuroscientist Hiyajo Maho.

The game was planned by Chiyomaru Shikura, using Steins;Gate audio dramas and light novels as a base for one of the routes; it is not a direct adaptation of them, however, and features a new scenario.

Steins;Gate 0 is a visual novel, where the player reads through the story in the form of passages of text and dialogue, accompanied by character sprites and background art.

It follows several characters, including the university student Okabe "Okarin" Rintaro, who, together with his friends Shiina "Mayushii" Mayuri, the neuroscientist Makise Kurisu and the hacker Hashida "Daru" Itaru, accidentally have discovered time travel through the use of a microwave oven and a phone – the PhoneWave – which they used to send text messages and digitized memory data back in time.

Between the alpha and beta attractor fields lies the "Steins Gate" world line, which is unaffected by their convergence points.

Some people can retain memories from the previous world line after a shift, an ability Okabe possesses and calls "Reading Steiner".

Among other characters are Daru's future daughter, the time traveler Amane Suzuha; Mayuri's future adoptive daughter Shiina Kagari; Kurisu's co-workers Hiyajo Maho, Alexis Leskinen and Judy Reyes from Viktor Chondria University; Okabe's friends Urushibara Luka and Akiha "Faris NyanNyan" Rumiho; and Mayuri's friends Amane Yuki, Nakase "Fubuki" Katsumi and Kurushima Kaede.

The game begins during Steins;Gate's ending, where Suzuha traveled to August 21, 2010, using her time machine to get Okabe to prevent a time-travel arms race leading to World War III; to do this, he needs to stop Kurisu's father, Doctor Nakabachi, from killing Kurisu and bringing her time travel theories to Russia.

The story splits into two major branches: In the one leading to the ending "Promised Rinascimento", Okabe rebuilds the PhoneWave to help an amnesiac woman identified as Kagari, who has had Kurisu's memories implanted by someone, which gradually overwrites her personality; this inadvertently transports him to 2036 during World War III.

Inspired by this and determined to avert this future, Okabe returns to 2010, destroys the hard drive, erases Amadeus, and sends a D-RINE message to the past of this branch, telling himself to "deceive the world and tie the possibilities".

However, Leskinen appears, revealing that he works for the intelligence agency Strategic Focus and intends to steal the time machine.

World War III begins, Daru flees Akihabara to develop the time machine, and Okabe gives up on reaching Steins Gate.

Okabe sends a D-Mail video to his 2010 counterpart, instructing himself how to save Kurisu and cause the world line divergence into Steins Gate, thus setting the events that would play out as the True End route in the previous game.

Steins;Gate 0 was developed by 5pb.,[6][7] and was planned by Chiyomaru Shikura and produced by Tatsuya Matsubara, and features character designs by Huke.

His process for composing the music consisted of him reading the game's story, to get an as full as possible understanding of the setting and the character personalities.

in Japan on August 26, 2016, after being delayed from its planned release date of June 24,[18][19] and was published internationally by Spike Chunsoft on May 8, 2018, in both English and Japanese.

[24] The English localization was led by Adam Lensenmayer, who was the sole translator for the project;[25][26] this was to ensure consistency in the feeling of the story and in the characters' voices.

[25] Lensenmayer wrote the localized text with a general audience in mind, intending for it to be accessible regardless of the player's knowledge of the game's setting,[25] while working towards creating something that people who have played the first Steins;Gate would enjoy.

One thing that took up a lot of time was localizing the character Mayuri's dialogue due to her way of speaking: Lensenmayer described her as acting "spacey", but not "stupid or ditzy", and said that there is a nuance of caring and awareness to her speech that does not come across in a direct translation.

[37] Critics called it a worthy follow-up to Steins;Gate, but thought that players should experience the original game or its anime adaptation beforehand.

[4] RPGFan's Rob Rogan liked the overall story, calling it "exciting, somber, heart-wrenching, and thought-provoking", and said that it felt "artificially lengthened" through scenes that do not serve a clear purpose in the plot;[3] Robert Fenner, also writing for the same website, said that Okabe's dilemma of wanting to speak to the Amadeus Kurisu but finding it painful is a good premise.

[32] Jordan Helm at Hardcore Gamer similarly noted that Okabe's conversations with Amadeus Kurisu were among the highlights of the game, and that character-focused scenes often felt like "padding".

[32] Carden, Rogan and Helm appreciated the Tips system, considering it a helpful way to make sure that players understand concepts and terms discussed in the game.

[47] As part of the "Steins;Gate World Line 2017–2018 Project", several pieces of media based on Steins;Gate 0 were produced, including a manga adaptation by Taka Himeno, which was serialized by Kadokawa Shoten in Young Ace from August 4, 2017, to February 4, 2020, and is collected in tankōbon volumes since April 4, 2018,[48][49][50][51] the manga was localized into English by Udon Entertainment and the first of three volumes was released on September 7, 2021;[52] an anime adaptation of the game by White Fox that premiered on April 11, 2018;[48][53] and a novelization of the game by Tatsuya Hamazaki, Steins;Gate 0: Solitude of the Mournful Flow, which was published by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko on August 1, 2018.

[58][59] Steins;Gate 0-themed merchandise has also been released, including shoes, business card cases, watches,[60] T-shirts, hoodies,[61] and laptop bags.