Zero Context

Content warning: this episode briefly discusses gun violence, blood, on-screen suicide, the death of a dog, and attempted sexual assault. It’s over. After being incinerated, dismembered, and blown up too many times to count, Axe and Nathalie have arrived at the end of Zero Time Dilemma, the end of Zero Escape , and the end of this podcast. As the sun sets on the Nevada desert, Delta informs our ho...

Content warning: this episode briefly discusses gun violence, blood, on-screen suicide, and the death of a child. It’s the penultimate episode of Zero Context, which means Axe and Nathalie get to finally meet Zero in the flesh. With bloodshot eyes and cane in hand, he clues them in on the tragic truth of our favorite ball-headed boy, Mira’s bloody fate, and how he’s somehow been there the whole ti...

Content warning: this episode briefly discusses starvation, sexual assault, domestic abuse, suicide and suicidal ideation, dismemberment, the death of infants, and gun violence. Through a chaotic sequence of various form of time travel, Axe and Nathalie have finally ended up at Zero Time Dilemma’s apex. They bare witness to a cabin fever love story, learn about transporter cooldown timers, and sen...

Content warning: this episode briefly discusses suicidal ideation, dismemberment, blood, and gore After last week’s malaise, Axe and Nathalie have been orb launched into two bewilderingly dense fragments. Zero Time Dilemma begins to reveal its secrets, as first our hosts close the loop on the radical-6 outbreak, finding a far more familiar culprit than expected. Then, Akane’s murderous soul return...

Content warning: this episode briefly discusses child abuse and death by suffocation Happy New Year! Returning from an arguably better videogame, Axe and Nathalie are back in the Zero Time Dilemma bomb shelter with our favorite cast of disorganized sickos. They learn about game show probability puzzles, crunch the numbers on sci-fi virus mortality rates (they’re bad), and play an actual escape roo...

Content warning: Kamaitachi no Yoru contains scenes of blood, dismemberment, murder, suicide, and transmisogyny, which are discussed briefly in this episode. Axe and Nathalie take a break from Zero Escape for the holidays, having scored an all-expenses-paid trip to a ski lodge from a mysterious and generous listener. The time off gives them a chance to finally play the seminal sound novel, Kamaita...

Content warning: this episode briefly discusses suicide and child abuse In an eerily brief set of fragments, Axe and Nathalie must contend with poison capsules, rotating rooms, and a belligerent shotgun wielding Eric as they scramble towards a still ambiguous resolution. They scan some brains and swing some hammers before confronting a troubling child abuse backstory and its many unfortunate conno...

Content warning: this episode briefly mentions alcoholism and suicidal ideation After escaping from a eerily familiar shower game, Axe and Nathalie stand before the exit ready to emerge into the humid Nevada air. Instead, they are treated to incoherent asides about alien mouths, tournament statistics, and the existential weight of many worlds. In another reality, they trudge through the worst rec...

Content warning: this episode discusses scenes involving characters melting and being burned alive, and a brief mention of suicide Awakening from an explosive nightmare, Axe and Nathalie are thrust into not one, not two, but three deadly decision games. First, they must choose whether to save themselves and doom the others to an acid grave. Then, they play a round of cosmic Russian roulette, poten...

Content warning: this episode discusses scenes involving heavy blood and gore, and briefly touches on suicide. After a brief 90 minute absence, Axe and Nathalie return to Zero Time Dilemma ready to dive into the game’s first set of puzzles. Once again trapped in a pantry, Nathalie gets hung up on a sliding door diagram but eventually the pair unlocks the freezer and its gruesome rewards. Elsewhere...

Returning after volunteering on a Mars colonization experiment, Axe and Nathalie are back in the Nevada desert for the third and final (?) Zero Escape game, Zero Time Dilemma (Chime, 2016). Immediately thrust into another death game, Axe digs into the tumultuous development process, Nathalie gets trapped in a coin toss timeloop, and they both delight in how outrageous an experience they’re already...

Content warning: suicide plays a central role in Virtue’s Last Reward and is discussed briefly in episode. After what feels like an eternity within the barren halls of Virtue’s Last Reward , Axe and Nathalie escape into a world they scarcely recognize. With little time to process what’s occur, they are funneled back into the facility where the facts of this diabolical game are finally disclosed. I...

Content warning: suicide plays a central role in Virtue’s Last Reward and is discussed briefly in episode. Returning to the director’s office, Axe and Nathalie use their months of nonary knowledge to finally hack into the lion computer, finding no puzzles and fewer answers. Unmoved by Phi’s pleas to take our BP and leave, we abandon her in the elevator for another date in the garden with Robo Luna...

Content warning: suicide plays a central role in Virtue’s Last Reward and is discussed briefly in episode. After a long sleep in the cryogenic pods, Axe and Nathalie are thrust back into Virtue’s Last Reward , the final end just out of reach. They fumble with dice in a neglected archive, spilling milk all over their hands, but manage to make it back to the garden with both arms attached. Alas, Lun...

Content warning: suicide plays a central role in Virtue’s Last Reward and is discussed briefly in episode. Jumping all the way back up the termite mound, Axe and Nathalie finally enter the cyan door, a choice they maybe should have made at the start. They learn about Schrodinger’s Cat, Erotic Units, Prime Decomposition, and several other Wikipedia pages while reveling in the impeccably designed ga...

Content warning: suicide plays a central role in Virtue’s Last Reward and is discussed briefly in episode. After the last bewildering lock, Axe and Nathalie take the long way down to warehouse B and finally get some answers. They learn about inflation with Tenmyouji, fend of Clover’s advances, and come face-to-face with the termite architect himself, Zero. Unfortunately, not even root beer can les...

Content warning: suicide plays a central role in Virtue’s Last Reward and is discussed briefly in episode. After a brief taste of freedom, Axe and Nathalie plunge back into Virtue’s Last Reward, running headfirst into a lock before much of anything happens. Desperate to move on and (hopefully) get some answers, they fumble through a poorly arranged lab, detail the mathematical effects of Radical-6...

After weeks locked in the Virtue’s Last Reward lounge, Axe and Nathalie finally step through the 9 door, only to discover a barren desert awaiting them. With nowhere left to go, they ponder the broken logic of the prisoner’s dilemma, why they have all these gold files, and who gets to use the big rock. Before fully crumbling under the weight of so much cursed knowledge, they stumble upon a transmi...

Content note: brief mention of incest in relation to YU-NO around 51:00 Axe and Nathalie groggily awake sometime after the start of Virtue’s Last Reward , only to discover they’ve been locked inside a cryogenic pod! Struggling against limited oxygen, they race through a blur of incomplete discoveries: Dio’s an imposter, K has daddy issues, and Sigma really needs to start writing things down. As th...

Content warning: suicide plays a central role in Virtue’s Last Reward and is discussed briefly in this episode. Axe and Nathalie venture further into Virtue’s Last Reward , getting trapped waiting for the password reset email as murder abounds. The workplace comedy death game continues to expand absurdly outward, treating our hosts to even more thought experiments, cryptic anagrams, and anime sick...

Content warning: suicide plays a central role in Virtue’s Last Reward and is discussed throughout this episode. Welcome back, espers! Axe and Nathalie awake up from their slumber to once again find themselves trapped in the twisted hands of Zero Escape. This time they’ll be forced to navigate the crudely rendered halls of Virtue’s Last Reward , the second game in the trilogy and a notably larger o...

Happy holidays from Zero Context! Bridging the gap between 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward , Axe and Nathalie reconvene for a very special episode, live reacting to the VLR promotional OVA ( watch it along with us here ). Zero Context will return in the new year. Don’t forget to leave cookies for Santa. Next time on Zero Context Beginning Virtue’s Last Reward with Clover’s ending, via the Yellow Door...

Content warning: brief mention of animal cruelty from 32:05-32:30; brief mention of incest from 1:11:19-1:11:52. We emerge from the gaming mines into the Nevada desert. It’s over. We’ve finished 999. As we depart in our Zero Escape promotional SUV, we reflect on our experience playing and replaying the game, now able to see it in totality. Did the mystery payoff? Is Zero morally justified? Did Nat...

The end of our 999 playthrough draws near as we stumble into the last (for real this time) bad ending. We finally get some answers about who’s been knifing everyone, discuss how the game begins to assert itself as an independent actor, and lament Clover’s continued degradation. Also, where’s Santa?? Next Time on Zero Context: The true ending, via doors 4 -> 7 -> 1. Also, make sure you: - Acc...

The last Bad End is upon us and it sure lives up to it! Axe and Nate continue their playthrough of 999 (Kotaro Uchikoshi, 2009), working through the ax ending and all its disappointing conclusions. Elsewhere, they discuss the different mechanics of mystery vs puzzle box media, continued disappointment at who Lotus could have been, and Nate makes a lot of predictions that are all true (even the one...