Using time travel in anꦏy media is rough. Most of the time, the act of traveling through time does nothing but make things confusing and/or remove all sense of urgency or consequence from any narrative. But, out of everything, time travel tends to work best in video games, primarily because it's a fun mechanic to use.

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These mechanics are the gamechangers of gaming.
And no, we don't mean games where you can change the in-game "time" for secrets, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:like the Animal Crossing games; we're talking about IPs where time manipulation is a core part of the game and/or story. Think of classic𒀰s likeไ Legacy of Kain or modern takes like Titanfall 2's Effect and Cause mission. Here are 11 time travel games you have to play.
Updated on October 4, 2024, by Aydan Sattler: Time travel in video games is a fascinating mechanic, but one that requires careful design to pull off effectively. When done well, it adds a layer of complexity and intrigue to the narrative, whether you're hunting down antagonists across different eras or struggling to escape from the wrong time period. This list explores a variety of games across multiple genres that allow players to dive into the intricacies of time manipulation, including the classic point-and-click adventure Day of the Tentacle.
11 Blinx: The Time Sweeper ജ
Blinx: The Time Sweeper
- Released
- 🔯 October 7, 2002 🦋
- ESRB
- E For Everyone Due To Mild Violence ꦏ
- Developer(s)
- Artoon
- Publisher(s)
- 🌠 𓆉 Microsoft Game Studios
- Platform(s)
- 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Xbox (Original)
- How Long To Beat
- 10 Hours
🦂First up is a real oddball game: Blinx: The Time Sweeper. Blinx came out in 2002 and is an action platform much in the same way a lot of the games from that age were. But, rather than just focusing on jumping, you can mess around with time in a variety of ways, thanks to Blinx being a Time Sweeper with a magical vacuum called the TS-1000.
They're honestly all pretty stereotypical time-based abilities, such as freezing time, slowing it down, speeding it up, or "recording" a moment in time. ♊So, it’s not the best game, but if you want something that’s heavily focused on messing around with time, Blinx might work for you.
10 🎃 Maniac Mansion 2: Day Of The Tentacle Remastered
- Platforms: PS4, PS Vita, Xbox One, Windows, Linux, iOS, OS X
- Released: March 22, 2016
- Genre: Point-and-Click Adventure
Day of the Tentacle is a quirky point-and-click adventure game that rivals the eccentricity of Blinx: The Time Sweeper in the odd-ball category. The story follows three teenagers, Bernard, Hoagie, and Laverne, as they attempt to stop an evil, sentient tentacle from ta𒐪king over the world. However, things quickly go awry when their outhouse-turned-time machines malfunction, leaving Hoagie stranded in colonial America and Laverne trapped in a distant, dystopian future.
To progress, you’ll need to switch between the characters, using time travel to solve bizarre puzzles that affect the past, present, and future. The game’s offbeat humor, zany characters, and inventive mechanics make Day of th𓄧e Tentacle a wild aඣnd unforgettable adventure.
9 ﷺ Life Is Strange ꦑ
- Released
- 🦩 January 30, 2015
- ESRB
- ♒ M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong🍸 Language, Use of Drugs and Alcohol
- Developer(s)
- 🐓 Dontnod Entertainment ✱
- Publisher(s)
- 168澳洲幸运5开奖网: Square Enix
- Platform(s)
- Android, iOS, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Nintendo Switch, PC, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:PlayStation 3, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One
- How Long To Beat
- 15 Hours
The standout game from Dontnod Studios and published by Square Enix, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Life is Strange was pretty huge for a while, thanks to its well-received LGBTQ+ representation, unique hipster atmosphere, and creative method of storytellinဣg. In it, Max Caulfield, an 18-year-old with a real eye for photography, suddenly discꦫovers she has a time travel ability, and a mysterious plot starts to unravel from there.

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The Life is Strange series is known for blending real-life drama with the world of superheroes, but which game is the bes🐈t?
Your goal in this game is to just experience Max's story, rewinding time to solve the scenario in the best way possible. Sometimes it’s something more serious, like fixing Chloe and Max’s relationship, and other times it's using your supernatural abilities to enjoy 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:some oddly beautiful mundane moments. Life is Strange is incredibly neat and very time travel-focused, but in teꦡrms of gameplay, it falls short compared to almost everything else on this list.
8 Braid
Then there's Braid - a game from the mind of Jonathan Blow who is known in the industr♋y as a bit of a genius, as he was also behind The Witnesꦉs. Braid is a 2D puzzle-platformer, but that's far too simple a label for what Braid actually manages to accomplish.
In this game, you’ll be treated to a wide variety of puzzles - all of which are designed to manipulate time in some way, as well as challenge your current preconceptions about video game puzzles. It might look simplistic at first, but Braid has so many different ways of m𓆉essing with time in inventive ways.
7 ♛ Z😼ero Time Dilemma
The Zero Escape series is an incredibly interesting set of games. There’s the first game 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, then Virtue’s Last Reward, and now: Zero Time Dilemma. In these games, you'll be puzzle-solving, picking who lives or who dies, aไnd attempting to solve a mind-bogglingly complex mystery. But, where does time-travel come in?
Well, there are a variety of endings depending on who you pick to perജish, since the story goes on without them afterward. But, canonically, all of these alternate endings are canon as the in-game codex refers to them as alternate timelines. And, in Virtue’s Last Reward, there are even certain characters who are able to mess with time more directly, so it's an integral part of the series.
6 🎉 Quantum Break
- Released
- 𝓰 April 5, 2016 🐼
- ESRB
- 🦹 M for Mature: Blood, In💫tense Violence, Strong Language
- Developer(s)
- 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Remedy Entertainment
- Publisher(s)
- 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Microsoft
- How Long To Beat
- 12 Hours
Quantum Break comes from Remedy Studios who are most known for creating Control, Alan Wake, and all the Max Payne games before that. In ༒it, you control Jack Joyce, a man out to stop the end of time (which technically has already passed) with the time-based powers he was granted. It's a game that also doubles as a TV show, which is pretty creative but is also a huge turnoff for some people.
And, because Quantum Break leans so heavily into the mechanics of time travel, many players found the plot absurdly confusing. That said, the graphical fidelity, gameplay loop, 𝔍and design of Quantum Break are all very well done, and the game itself is a blast 🃏to play.
5 Superhot
We were going to put Timeshift on here, but quite frankly, Superhot does a better job as a time-manipulation shooter than Timeshift 🎃does. And it does so with arguably fewer mechanics overall. The stylistic game is centered around players solving combat “puzzles” where time only moves when you do.

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And if you fail, ꦿdie and diওe again. That's the core of the whole thing.
The game first came out in 2016, but the movement in it was something people desperately wanted to see adapted for VR-play, so the deღ🌌velopers (Superhot Team) managed to pull that off by the end of the year and even made a sequel not long after called Superhot: Mind, Control, Delete. Whether you play Superhot with mouse + keyboard, controller, or a VR headset, you're guaranteed to have a blast.
4 🐼 Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time
- Released
- ♛ October 28, 2003
- ESRB
- Teen // Blood, Sug🐭gestive Themes, Violence 🅰
- Developer(s)
- Ubisoft Montrꦦeal
- Publisher(s)
- Ubisoft
- Platform(s)
- 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:PlayStation 2, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Xbox (Original), Nintendo GameCube, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Nintendo Game Boy Advance, PC, Mobile
- How Long To Beat
- 9 Hours
Other than Blinx, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is the other game that immediately comes to mind when time travel is ment🐲ioned. In it, you take control of the Prince as he runs through India trying to reverse his own horrible mistake of releasing the Sands of Ti🦹me that warped both the people and the landscape.
To do this, the Prince must use a variety of time-changing abilities, such as reversing time, freezing it for a single opponent, or stopping time altogether for everyth๊ing but himself. These mechanics, paired with the immensely satisfying platforming and the relatively complex com꧅bat, create a game so iconic, that it sort of represents the time-manipulation genre of video games.
3 ไ Timesplitters 2 🐷
TimeSplitters 2
- Released
- 🌱 October 8, 2002 ꦛ
- ESRB
- T For Teen // Blood, Language, Violence 🌼🐠
- Developer(s)
- Free Radical Design 🐼 🔜
- Publisher(s)
- 👍 ⛎ Eidos Interactive
- Platform(s)
- GameCube, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:PlayStation 2, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:PlayStation 4, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:PlayStation 5, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Xbox (Original)
- How Long To Beat
- 9 Hours
Timesplitters 2 is a beloved classic that everyone remembers fondly. In fact, t🌺here was a fake teased remake for the second game not too long ago that caused such backlash from the fan base THQ Nordic had to come out and apologize. Timesplitters 2 was the multiplaᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚyer shooter that fans of the N64 Goldeneye had been awaiting🐭 for five long years.
It had fantastic multipဣlayer maps, 50+ unlockable characters, a level editor, a hilarious campaign, and so much more. But, what about the time travel aspects? Well, that's the whole concept of the game, since you play as a Space Marine named Cortez who travels through time collecting "time crystals" to stop an alien race called the Timesplitters from destroying humanity.
2 The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time, Oracle Of Ages, Seasons, And Majora's Mask
Ocarina of Time |
Oracle of Ages |
Oracle of Seasons |
Majora's Mask |
|
---|---|---|---|---|
Platforms |
Nintendo 64, GameCube, iQue Player |
Game Boy Color |
Game Boy Color |
Nintendo 64, GameCube |
Released |
November 21, 1998 |
February 27, 2001 |
February 27, 2001 |
April 27, 2000 |
Genre |
RPG |
RPG |
RPG |
RPG |
How could we talk about time travel without mentioning the Legend of Zelda games? The series just recently had its 35th anniversary, after all, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the "Zelda Timeline" is something any video game fan knows about. In particular, there are four that really focus on time-travel, those being 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Oracle of Seaꩲsons, and Oracle of Ages. All four of these games handle the concept of time-travel differently.
Oꦏcarina of Time basically has two time periods you hop back and forth from with Young Link and Adult Link. Majora’s Mask takes place over the same period of three days, experienced over and over as Link learns to “master” the time loop. Oracle ൲of Seasons and Oracle of Ages might seem like two versions of the same game, like Pokemon Red and Blue, but there are actually a variety of big gameplay differences. All four of these games handle time-travel in inventive ways without over complicating the plot or gameplay itself.