Time travelling is brilliant – you get to pop into the future to see how things shake out, or throw yourself back into the past to correct old mistakes (which for me would be a full-time job with overtime…but I digress). Anyway, today is “Pretend to be a Time Traveller Day” (listen, it’s a thing, OK?!), and what better way is there to pretend to be a time traveller than in the time travel games that let you indulge in that particular pursuit? So read on for a roundup of our favourite time-travelling games!
Braid
A painterly, two-dimensional platformer from the same fella that brought us The Witness, Braid has players guiding an everyman hero from his house to a mysterious fantasy castle in search of an abducted princess. Where things get especially spicy though, is that the player is given near-limitless creative latitude to manipulate time. Rewind time, dilate time, fashion parallel realities and deal with certain objects that are immune to time manipulation. Braid is a brain tickling, time-travelling platformer that dovetails time travelling trouble into its overall design like no other game.
Chrono Trigger
Square Enix’s classic JRPG effort is a timeless (if you’ll excuse the pun) sweeping epic, in which the appropriately-named Cronos finds himself swept four centuries into the past as he and his friends seek to unravel the roots of an ancient evil that is threatening the planet. Bolstered by the same Active Time Battle system seen in the Final Fantasy games, though Chrono Trigger might be a decidedly old-school looking, top-down JRPG, it has heart in spades and one of the most jaw-dropping uses of time travel ever seen in a video game.
Day Of The Tentacle
The laugh-out-loud hilarious sequel to Ron Gilbert’s pioneering adventure Manic Mansion, Day of the Tentacle is everything that you ever loved about classic LucasArts Point & Click adventure, all wrapped up in a time travelling bow. As a trio of goofy but ultimately lovable friends, Day of the Tentacle is a puzzle-solving, point and click adventure extravaganza that sees our motley trio travelling throughout time. Whilst meeting key figures such as Thomas Jefferson, they set about attempting to save the world from a megalomaniacal purple tentacle. They certainly don’t make time-travelling games like this anymore.
Quantum Break
From the same talented studio that gave us Alan Wake and Control, Quantum Break is a time-bending, third-person shooter in which two brothers attempt to stop a power-mad inventor from tearing time apart. A delirious mix of Max Payne-style, third-person shooting and neat time manipulation powers that allow you to freeze enemies in place, rewind time and more besides, Quantum Break is the sort of highly-polished, time-travelling blaster that we all need in our lives.
The Forgotten City
Originally beginning life as a mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, The Forgotten City has players waking up on the shore of a mysterious ancient Roman city more than two thousand years ago. If that wasn’t strange enough, the small handful of people that live there find themselves governed by the “Golden Rule”; an edict that decrees if anybody commits a sin, everyone dies. The kicker, however, is that each time the Golden Rule is broken, the day begins anew and our protagonist retains the knowledge of the days previously.
A masterful first-person RPG that deftly weaves social engineering, historical exploration and multiple endings, The Forgotten City has players trying to escape their fate all the while protecting the inhabitants of The Forgotten City and uncovering the power behind the Golden Rule. Skyrim meets Groundhog Day meets HBO’s Rome? Yep, it’s every bit as good as that sounds.
The Sexy Brutale
Locked within the walls of the stylish Sexy Brutale casino mansion, The Sexy Brutale whisks players away into a never-ending masquerade ball. However, the high-powered attendees are being murdered one by one by a mysterious assailant, before the day resets itself at midnight…and the whole macabre spectacle plays out exactly the same way.
Tasking you with solving the murders in order to break the time loop and escape the titular mansion, The Sexy Brutale is an endlessly clever fusion of puzzle solving, old fashioned detective work and time-travelling adventures that everybody should play.
That’s it from us, but let us know if your favourite time-travelling games made the cut over at our Community Forum!
