List of games containing time travel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Many games contain time travel elements. This list includes video games, board games, pen and paper role-playing games and play by mail games which strongly feature time travel.

Video games[]

Time travel has been used and explored by both film, literature, and video games. Unlike films and literature, video games allow the player to interact directly, opening up different forms of gameplay.[1] Time travel as a plot device has been employed in video games since early arcade games.[2] The manipulation of time as an aspect of gameplay entered the mainstream following the release of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time in 2003, though earlier titles such as 2000's The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask have employed it.[1]

Time travel as a storyline element[]

Title Year Description
The 7th Saga 1993 One of the seven players can time travel from the present-day Ticondera to 5000 years into the past Ticondera right after defeating a resurrected Gariso and collecting all seven runes. There in the past the player must explore and walk all the way to the island of Melenam, explore the ice cave and go to Gorsia's castle to defeat Gorsia.
Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors 2009 The story protagonist Junpei is abducted and placed aboard a sinking cruise liner along with eight other people. It is eventually revealed that the antagonist Zero was placed into a death trap nine years prior and only survived by getting the answer from Junpei through a psychic connection through time; Zero now intends to recreate their vision to close the time loop and save themselves.
Achron 2011 This real-time strategy game offers single-player and multi-player free-form time travel. Players can play at different points in time simultaneously and can stop, slow, and fast forward through the flow of time. Players can also send units through time.
Adventure in Time 1981 A text adventure in which the player pursues Nostradamus through time in order to prevent the creation of a world destroying weapon.
Ape Escape 1999 In this 3D platform game, when a curious ape tries on a special helmet, his intelligence is boosted. This ape, Specter, uses a time machine to conquer different time periods and establish the apes as the most dominant race. The player must travel through time and recapture the apes.[3]
Back to the Future 1989 This NES game is based on the Back to the Future movie. In this game Marty Mcfly travels from 1985 to the year 1955 by mistake. Marty now has to run up the street in a Paperboy game style and collect alarm clocks in order to prevent him and his brothers and sisters from being erased from the photograph. He also has to fight bullies at the malt shop, prevent Lorraine from kissing him by breaking her heart, play the electric guitar by catching music notes and attempt to drive up to 88 MPH in his Delorean time machine car to get back to 1985.
Back to the Future II & III 1990 This NES game is based on the Back to the Future II and III movies. In this game the old Biff Tannen steals the 1950–2000 sports almanac and takes the Delorean time machine to 1955 and gives it to his younger self. As a result, Biff alters 1985, now ruling Hill Valley as a rich man. Marty Mcfly has to time travel in three different time periods, 1955, 1985, and 2015, to gather 30 items and solve the word puzzle for each item in order to get the sports almanac book and burn it. Later, Doc Brown and Marty are stuck in the year 1875, which should have been 1885. Marty has to gather 10 items and solve the word puzzle for each item. After the puzzles are solved, Marty and Doc can use the train to push the Delorean time machine car to get it to 88 MPH and get back to 1985.
Back to the Future: The Game 2010 This game is set seven months after Back to the Future Part III in May 1986. Doc gets trapped in 1931 and needs Marty McFly's help.
Ben 10 Alien Force: Vilgax Attacks 2009 Vilgax has successfully taken over Earth, so Professor Paradox sends Ben, Gwen and Kevin back far enough in time to destroy every power source for his Null Void Projector possible in the whole galaxy.
Ben 10: Omniverse 2012 When a modification for Ben's Omnitrix goes haywire, his new partner, Rook, gets sent back in time.
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure 1989
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure 1991 This action-adventure game has an overhead perspective. When Bill & Ted's girlfriends are kidnapped they are forced to travel through time collecting musical notes in order to locate them.[4]
Bill & Ted's Excellent Video Game Adventure 1991 This action-adventure game has an isometric perspective. It is related to the film's plot; the duo must restore historical figures to their correct time periods by exploring the game world and collecting objects.[5]
Bio Senshi Dan: Increaser to no Tatakai 1987
Bioshock Infinite 2013
Blinx 2: Masters of Time and Space 2004
Blinx: The Time Sweeper 2002 The titular character Blinx works for a Time Factory on the outskirts of reality. He is tasked with maintaining and repairing the flow of time whenever glitches and paradoxes occur.
Bubsy 2 1994
Bugs Bunny & Taz: Time Busters 2000 After Daffy Duck accidentally breaks Granny's time regulator, he is thrown into the past along with the parts needed to repair the machine. Bugs Bunny is then tasked with saving his friend and repairing the regulator.
Bugs Bunny: Lost in Time 1999 After mistaking a time machine for a carrot juice dispenser, the titular character Bugs Bunny is sent traveling through time in search of five magical carrots that can return him home.
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth 2005
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2010 Continuing from the World at War Zombies map "Der Riese," Edward Richtofen, Tank Dempsy, Nikolai Belinski, and Takeo travel from 1945 to 1963 in a WWII German theater using a teleporter overcharged with a Wunderwaffe DG-2, a fictional weapon.
Causality 2017 The game is about guiding a group of astronauts to safety.
Chibi-Robo! 2005
Chrono Cross 1999 The sequel to Chrono Trigger. A boy named Serge accidentally arrives in an alternate universe where he died as a child, and ends up on a time-travelling adventure to avert catastrophe.
Chrono Trigger 1995 A group of heroes from different eras travel back and forth through time in an attempt to prevent the end of the world in the year 1999.
Chronomaster 1995 Adventure game by SF&F novelist Roger Zelazny. A designer of "pocket universes" investigates someone stopping time in several of them.
Chronos Twins 2007
City of Heroes 2004
Clive Barker's Jericho 2007
Clive Barker's Undying 2001
Clock Tower 3 2003 An ordinary schoolgirl, oblivious to the knowledge that her female ancestors have been defending humanity from evil for centuries. During the game, Alyssa is hunted by serial killers who want to take her heart from her corpse. She travels through time to destroy supernatural killers after their final murders.
Command & Conquer: Red Alert series 1996–present Albert Einstein travels back in time to kill Hitler, causing an alternative world war in the 1950s between the USSR and Allies. Time travel would later be used in the campaigns of Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 and its expansion pack, Yuri's Revenge, in Allied POV, they reset time where Soviets attack San Francisco to destroy the Psychic Dominator, foiling Yuri and signing a peace treaty with the Soviets, in the Soviet POV, they capture the Time Machine and use a base they built in the past, destroy the Dominator, eliminate Einstein's Lab in Black Forest and undoing their defeat in the present, and eliminate Yuri once and for all. In Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, the events are further changed when the Soviets utilize their own time machine to kill Einstein in the past and erase him from history, which causes the Soviet Union to not be defeated in war against the Allies, Nuke and Prism technology are non-existent/ and, unintentionally creates a superpower named The Empire of the Rising Sun.
Connections It's a Mind Game 1995
Crash Bandicoot: Warped 1998 The series' traditional wormholes to the various levels now transport Crash to different points in history.
Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason 2008 The main protagonist has the ability to penetrate other characters' memories and change the actions taken by them in the past.
Daikatana 2000
Dark Chronicle 2002 The game's central story revolves around the protagonist Maxwell attempting to reconstruct the future by recreating events in the past that were destroyed by the story's antagonist Lord Griffon.
Darkest of Days 2009 Darkest of Days takes the player through time into historic battles in an effort to save key individuals from death. The battles range from Custer's Last Stand at the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876 to fighting in Pompeii as ash and fire rain down from an erupting Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD. Other locations include the battles of Antietam and Tannenberg, and a German World War II P.O.W. camp.
Day of the Tentacle 1993 The player switches freely between three characters, each trapped in a different era (past, present and future). Gameplay requires sending items back and forth through time and altering historic events in one era to affect another. One humorous example involves altering Betsy Ross' plans for the American flag in order to turn it into a costume to disguise the player in a future controlled by sentient tentacles.
Dino Eggs 1983 Time Master Tim must be guided through prehistoric landscapes in order to collect dinosaur eggs and transport them through time to the present.
Dishonored 2 2016 In a particular level the player can freely switch between past and present, and can see the past/present in realtime through the device.
Dragon Age: Inquisition 2014 A quest in the main timeline transports the main character into an apocalyptic future. The circumstances of the apocalypse are a direct result of the main character's abrupt disappearance earlier in time. Completing the quest by returning to the past allows the character to prevent the apocalyptic future they experienced from occurring.
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot 2020 When Goku ends Frieza, a kid named Trunks (Vegeta's son) travels with a time machine from the future to tell Kakarot that Androids will come to destroy the Earth and its livings. After finishing Mecha Frieza, he leaves the past and returns to his present.
Dragon Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past 2000
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age 2017 The Timekeeper gives the Luminary, the game's protagonist, the power to go back in time and defeats Mordegon before he can steal the Sword of Light and Yggdrasil's heart.
EarthBound 1994 The journey of main character Ness begins after a time traveler, Buzz Buzz, tells him about a future apocalypse which only he and his friends can stop. In the last part of the game, the protagonists travel to the past, when the villain Giygas is most vulnerable. One of Giygas' minions, Porky, escapes to another time period and becomes the main antagonist of Mother 3.
Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future 2000 The player must travel through different times and time lines in order to restore history.
The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall 1996 The end of the game results in the Agent giving the Totem of Tiber Septim to one of eight factions. Somehow, all eight factions receive the Totem at the same time, and controlling the Numidium, a giant brass golem, with the Totem, achieved whatever goals they had. This event is called "The Warp" in the West, and is thought to have happened due to a "break" in time, in which multiple timelines converged into one.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim 2011 The Dovahkiin uses an Elder Scroll in a "time wound" to look back into time to when the time wound was created, which was when that particular Elder Scroll was last used. This is so the Dovahkiin can learn the "Dragonrend" shout, which was used as a key component in banishing Alduin, the main antagonist of the game.
Empire Earth 2001 During the game's Russian campaign, Sergei Molotov/Molly Ryan must build a time machine to come back to the year 2018 and destroy Grigor Illyanich Stoyanovich's Empire, Novaya Russia.
Enter the Gungeon 2016 The titular Gungeon safeguards a time machine that allows its user to kill the past. The protagonists traverse the Gungeon with the intention of finding the time machine in order to undo their past mistakes.
Escape from Monkey Island 2000 At one point in the game, the protagonist Guybrush meets his future self, who gives him a key for a gate and some other (useless) items in a certain order, and answers a random question. A few screens later, in order to progress, the player must give his past self the items in the same order and answer the question just as Guybrush in the future did.
EverQuest: Seeds of Destruction 2008 Players must travel back in time to prevent the forces of Discord from altering the history of Norrath.
Evil Dead: Hail to the King 2000 Ash Williams travels to medieval Damascus (year 730).
Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick 2003 Ash Williams travels through several time periods (the early 20th century, years 1863, 1695, and medieval Asia).
Evoland 2 2015 Players travel between four different time periods, each with its own historical setting and graphical art style that match up with Game Boy graphics, 8-bit graphics, 16-bit graphics and 3D graphics.
Exile 1991 Console remake of XZR II.
Final Fantasy 1987 The villain Garland travels 2,000 years into the past with the help of the Four Fiends. Garland then sends the Four Fiends 2,000 years into the future to cause global destruction and send his present-day body into the past.
Final Fantasy VIII 1999 The character Ellone has the ability to send the consciousness of a person she knows back in time and junction it to another person she knows in the past. The plot of Final Fantasy VIII also deals with a sorceress from the future and "Time Compression", in which past, present, and future all mix together.
Final Fantasy XI 2002 Once the "Wings of the Goddess" expansion has been applied, players can travel between the present and past during play.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 2011 Noel Kreiss comes from the distant future, where he is the last human who travels back in time to change the future. Gameplay heavily involves time travel, including visiting same locations in different eras and using time travel to complete quests and solve mysteries.
Final Fantasy XIV 2013 Louisoix sends the player character five years into the future at the conclusion of the original release. In the Heavensward expansion, the Alexander raid series involves the titular primal's ability to time travel as part of a secret society's efforts to rewrite history. In the Shadowbringers expansion, the Crystal Tower and its caretaker, the Crystal Exarch, were transported to the First from an alternate timeline where the Eighth Umbral Calamity decimated the Source.
Final Fantasy Legend III 1991 This game involves time traveling by boarding a Talon spaceship. To travel to the past, the player must find the past item unit in Elan Present, then use the Past Warp unit at the Talon controls to go to the past, then also find the future item in the Castle of Chaos, then use the Future Warp unit at the Talon controls to go to the future.
Fire Emblem Awakening 2013 Lucina, the daughter of the main protagonist, Chrom, travels back from a post-apocalyptic future where the dragon Grima has taken over. Lucina's friends also travel to the past with her.
First Samurai 1993 This game involves time traveling with the Samurai character, who is chasing after the Demon King through time in each level.
Freedom Force 2002 Both this game and its sequel, Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich, feature a villainous character named Time Master who has absolute power over time.
Futurama 2003 The crew must travel back to prevent the sale of Planet Express. They fail in doing so and get themselves killed which provides an infinite loop as the game starts all over again.
Future Wars 1989 A window cleaner is transported through time.
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective 2011 The main character has the ability to change fate by traveling back in time to four minutes before a person's death.
God of War II 2007 The main character, Kratos, travels back in time to avoid being killed by Zeus. Later in the game, Kratos uses the power of the sisters of fate to travel to a time before the Olympian gods held power over the world and bring the Titans back to his time to destroy the gods.
GrimGrimoire 2007 Student from a magic school main character, Lillet Blan, mysteriously travels back to the past to stop a great demon and archmage from creating chaos. She travels back in time constantly at the end of the fifth day unknowingly without fail and attempts to find the root cause of how the archmage and great demon came to be, while saving her friends and teachers.
Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time 2012 Two angels from the future travel back in time: Achiel wants to annihilate humankind, while Youriel, sympathizes with the humans and wants to save them.
Hyrule Warriors 2014, 2016, 2018 Many characters from the past of the Legend of Zelda series are brought in. This has the effect of joining the three timeline branches into one.
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity 2020 The robot Terrako travels back a few months to avert the return of Calamity Ganon and create an alternate timeline to the events of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. In a later scene of the game, it also brings several characters back a hundred years (from the original line) to aid the Champions.
InFamous 2009 The superpowered main character, Cole MacGrath, finds out that the main antagonist, Dr. Kessler, is actually a future version of himself from an alternate timeline, who, after his family was killed by an entity known as "The Beast", traveled back in time to prevent his past self from making the same mistakes he did.
Jak II 2003 The plot begins with the protagonist Jak being taken through the "precursor rift gate" to the same location 200 years in the future. Near the end of the game it is revealed that a young kid in this future is actually Jak while he was young, and that he was sent back in time to learn the skills necessary to defeat the antagonist, Kor.
Jazz Jackrabbit 2 1998 The protagonists must chase the villainous Devan Shell through various points in time.
Jazz Jackrabbit 3 2000 This canceled sequel would have seen Jazz traveling to a future ruled by Devan Shell.
The Journeyman Project series 1992–1999 The player controls Gage Blackwood, Agent 5 of the Temporal Security Agency (TSA), a secret organization in charge of guarding the timestream from being altered. Players have to bounce back and forth in time to solve puzzles and find clues, visiting real historical places (Leonardo da Vinci's workshop) or places of legend (Atlantis). Players were also encouraged to not be seen either by avoiding contact with citizens of that time period, appearing as another inhabitant or becoming invisible altogether.
JumpStart Adventures 3rd Grade: Mystery Mountain 1996 The goal of the game is to prevent a bratty girl from altering history so that her answers to a history quiz she failed will be correct.
Kingdom Hearts II 2005 Sora, Donald and Goofy travel to a past time period (called the Timeless River) when Disney Castle is being built. Black Pete tries to take the Cornerstone of Light that protects the castle from evil, but is stopped by Sora and company, along with Pete's past version.
Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance 2012 Sora and Riku are sent back in time by Master Yen Sid during the events of Kingdom Hearts to travel through Sleeping Worlds in order to fulfill their Mark of Mastery and become Keyblade Masters. Along the way, they encounter Ansem, Xemnas, and Young Xehanort who have also travelled through time and attempt to make Sora the thirteenth vessel needed for Master Xehanort to complete the real Organization XIII, or the 13 seekers of darkness.
Kingdom Hearts III 2019 Master Xehanort, the main antagonist of the game, transferred the hearts of his younger self, Ansem, Xemnas, Vanitas, and Riku Replica from the past into Vexen’s incomplete replicas and his past heart from Birth by Sleep into Terra's recompleted body to fill in ranks for the Organization. Later in the Final World after being defeated by Terra-Xehanort, Sora uses the Power of Waking to save the Guardians of Light from the Lich Heartless and resets reality back right before their defeat. This action leads to an alternate history where the Guardians of Light defeat Xehanort and the Organization once and for all. Later, in the ReMind DLC episode, he uses the power once again to travel back at the final battle and travels through the hearts of Ventus, Aqua, Terra, Roxas, himself, Riku and King Mickey in order to revive Kairi after she was destroyed by Xehanort in order to create the X-Blade.
Kingdom Hearts χ 2017 Maleficent has travelled back in time after her first defeat from Sora in order change her destiny. After being thwarted again, she encounters “Darkness”, who takes her to the Ark inside the clock tower of Daybreak Town and she fights Lauriam. This device will enable her to travel back to her original time during the events of Kingdom Hearts II.
Kokotoni Wilf 1984 The eponymous protagonist must travel through various time periods to recover the pieces of the Dragon Amulet.
Last Epoch 2018 The game takes place over the course of four eras. Characters travel through the eras to defeat "The Void", an unknown entity attempting to destroy the universe and time itself. Actions taken in one era affect future eras.
Legacy of Kain series 1996–2003 The game series states that "history abhors a paradox". In the Kain series, the "Timestream" is immutable. Changes made by individuals have no effect on the general flow of time, but major changes can be made by introducing a paradox, at which point the Timestream is forced to reshuffle itself to accommodate the change in history.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword 2011 Time traveling is used in this Legend of Zelda game. A time gate portal in the Faron area in the Forest Temple allows the player to time travel 1000 years into the past.
Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2 2017 After the time traveller Kang the Conqueror has plucked various realms from time and space (like Asgard and Wakanda) out of their time stream and fused them to his kingdom Chronopolis, several super heroes from the conquered realms (specifically the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy) have to team up to attack Kang's citadell and end his reign.
Life Is Strange 2015 Life Is Strange is a graphic adventure game that tells the story of student Max Caulfield, a 12th-grade student in an Oregon private high school, and her attempts to alter future events using time travel. It appears as a gameplay element, allowing Max to alter events, and as a plot point, with her traveling back in time to try to solve dilemmas in her present.
Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal 2007
Lost in Time 1993 After exploring a shipwreck in the year 1992, a woman is transported back to 1840 where she begins to uncover mysteries about her past.
The Lost Vikings series 1992
The Magic of Scheherazade 1987
Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time 2005 Mario and Luigi travel to the past to help their younger selves fight off an alien invasion.
Mario's Time Machine 1993 This educational video game involves Bowser stealing precious artifacts from history, such as Shakespeare's pen and Magellan's ship's steering wheel, and displaying them in his museum. Mario must go back in time to stop Bowser's plan.
MediEvil 2 2000
Mia's Math Adventure: Just in Time! 2001 Mia's house burns down and she travels back in time to investigate and prevent the fire.
Millennia: Altered Destinies 1995
Mortal Kombat 2011 In the beginning of the story, a severely weakened Raiden is about to be killed by Shao Kahn, but casts a last-minute spell on the shattered pieces of his magical amulet, directing it to contact his past self with the vague message "He must win". The act eventually reboots the events of the franchise, though it is successful by the end of the story.
The New Adventures of the Time Machine 2000 An adaptation of H.G. Wells' works, you are a male protagonist thrown out of your own time period and only one can help you - a mythical being, the demi-god Khronos.
A New Beginning 2010 This point-and-click adventure game takes place in a post-apocalyptic scenario, where Earth has been destroyed by forces of nature. In the 26th century a group of people execute The Phoenix Plan, in which they travel into the past in an attempt to manipulate the fate of the future.
2019 After you escaped with a time machine from a secret facility you go on a trip through time while battling the illusive time agents under the control of Mr. Crimson. Alternate timelines and funny characters.
No Time to Explain 2011 Side-scrolling platformer. Multiple versions of the protagonist from different times and alternate timelines are rescuing each other from kidnappings and trying to find the culprit.
Ōkami 2006
Omega Boost 1999 A 3D shoot ‘em up released in 1999. The game was short (only 9 levels) but saw a pilot operating the Omega Boost mecha back in time to stop the artificial intelligence AlphaCore from implanting a virus into ENIAC as part of a war between humans and AlphaCore.
Onimusha 3: Demon Siege 2004 This game features two playable characters who have switched places in time due to the instability of an antagonist's time machine. A feudal Samurai was sent to modern-day Paris, while a modern-day French officer was transported to feudal Japan.
Original War 2001 In this RTS/RPG, American and Russian troops are sent 2 million years back in time in order to secure the precious mineral "siberit" for themselves. Each campaign features a different plot and several endings.
Outcast 1999
Outer Wilds 2019 The player wakes up 22 minutes before the supernova of their sun and must relive the last moments of their home system, or explore the system to find a way to prevent the supernova, utilizing the time loop to buy virtually unlimited time to figure things out.
Pac-In-Time 1994
Pepper's Adventures in Time 1993 A girl, Pepper, and her dog, Lockjaw, travel back in time to Philadelphia in 1764. Pepper is responsible for ensuring that history unfolds the way it should, as well as first locating and subsequently reuniting with Lockjaw.
Plants vs. Zombies 2 2013 The player's neighbor Crazy Dave eats a taco and enjoys it so much he decides to travel back in time to eat it again, drawing the player into a time-hopping adventure.
Please, Don't Touch Anything 2015
Portal 2 2011 Aperture Science founder Cave Johnson mentions a (boarded up and unplayable) testing chamber that involves time travel. He explicitly mentions not to interact with the player's future self, even if he/she attempts to warn them against finishing the test.
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky 2009 The fifth special episode added to the sister game is about saving the paralyzed future in Grovyle's path, following the player's adventure to the last dungeon.
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness 2007 The player travels back in time to save the future, in which time has stopped altogether. However, it travels to the future and the past with two partners as the events unfold.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time series 2003 An unnamed Prince discovers a fabled artifact called the Dagger of Time, allowing him the ability to manipulate time.
Prisoner of Ice 1995 The protagonist travels back in time to reveal crucial information to himself, and to prevent his own death.
Professor Layton and the Unwound Future 2008 The story is set in motion by a letter from ten years in the future and a failed time machine demonstration.
Quantum Break 2016
Radiant Historia 2010
Raging Loop 2015 The protagonist Haruaki finds himself participating in Feast, a Werewolf like game, where deaths happen in reality. He loops back in time whenever he dies, returning to the night before the game started. Haruaki retains his memories of previous loops and uses them to discover the truth behind the Feast and the time looping.
Rascal 1998 The protagonist travels through time to save his father from aliens. The main weapon of the game is a gun that transports enemies to different timelines.
Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time 2009 Throughout the game, the protagonists make use of various time travel elements, using a gigantic mechanism known as the Great Clock, which regulates time across the universe. In one instance, Ratchet goes back in time two years to find out what happened to Clank's father, and in another the duo travel back ten years to alter the outcome of a large battle on planet Morklon.
Rift 2011 As part of the tutorial area of the Defiant faction.
Robotrek 1994 In this Super NES game, after the player fights the boss Blackmore at the air base, the base blows up, sending the player to the past of Rococo, with the option to alter the past.
Rock of Ages 2011 This game follows the story of Sisyphus as he travels through time from ancient Greece through the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and more, ending up in the Romantic era.
Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space 2008, 2009, 2010 "Chariots of the Dogs" (and to a lesser extent "What's New, Beelzebub?" and "Ice Station Santa") all have time travel in them.
Serious Sam series 2001–present The games First Encounter, Second Encounter, and Next Encounter involve a hero from the future sent back in time by means of ancient Sirian alien technology in order to find a means to reach the homeworld of the alien overlord Mental, who has ravaged Earth in the future. Sam visits ancient Egypt, Incan ruins, English villages, Chinese cities and Roman temples, albeit sometime after their respective civilizations have died off. Serious Sam 2 abandons the time travel theme in favor of various planets.
Shadow of Memories 2001 The main character has to travel back in time to prevent his own death and discover his assailant's identity and motive.
Shiren the Wanderer 3: The Sleeping Princess and the Karakuri Mansion 2008 Before Shiren, Koppa and Asuka enter the Karakuri Mansion for the first time, Shiren gets hallucinated by a mysterious girl. During it, both him and Koppa are sent 1,000 years in the past and get incarnated under a different body to discover the origins of the Karakuri Mansion.
The Silent Age 2012 A point-and-click puzzle video game, where Joe, a janitor working for the fictional multi-million corporation known as Archon, have to save mankind from an imminent plague by using time travel.
Singularity 2010 In the game, the main character (Captain Nathaniel Renko) acquires the TMD (Time Manipulation Device), created by Dr. Viktor Barisov. Using various time rifts around the island of Katorga-12, the player travels between 1955 and 2010 to save the timeline from the evils of Dr. Demichev.
Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time 2013 Sly, Bentley and Murray have to travel in time in order to save Sly's ancestors from an unknown threat.
Sonic Generations 2011 With some help, Eggman sends Sonic and his friends back in time. Several main characters meet up with their past selves to get through reimaginings of older games' stages, as well as to defeat Eggman and his past counterpart. The Time Eater brings them to their final destination as Sonic and his past self become Super Sonic to defeat it.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 The main antagonist is Solaris, a sun god with absolute control of time. In addition, one of its split forms, Mephiles, is capable of time travelling and has the additional ability of creating time portals when used by two users simultaneously.
Sonic the Hedgehog CD 1993 Sonic can travel to the past and future of each Zone in the game by running at top speed in tandem with energy of the time warp for a set amount of time. The goal in each stage is to destroy a machine that the antagonist, Robotnik "Eggman", has placed in the past in order to conquer the future. The future of each Zone will change from "bad" (default, ruined future) to "good" (lively and happy) if the machines are destroyed.
Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers 1991 An unusual example, the titular protagonist is sent to past and future iterations of his own game series, including Space Quests I, III, X and XII. The game treats each time period as a separate location, and Roger is never in any danger of creating a paradox, though this changes in the next game, in which he has to ensure the safety of his future wife so that his yet-unborn son can travel back in time to save him at the start of Space Quest IV.
Spider-Man: Edge of Time 2011 Set between 2011 and 2099, Peter Parker and Miguel O'Hara, the Spider-Men of their respective eras, face a foe who has changed history to ensure his own rise to power, and find themselves working across time to undo the changes to history that will result in Peter Parker dying that night. During the game, the time portal created to change history results in actions in the past immediately affecting the future, such as Parker destroying the 2011 prototype of the robot guards currently attacking O'Hara in 2099 and thus erasing them from history. The final villain is revealed to be the corrupted version of Peter Parker in 2099, attempting to rewrite history, but he is defeated when the two Spider-Men work together.
Star Ocean 1996
Star Trek Online 2010–Present Multiple uses of the slingshot method from the Video series. End game focuses on a Time War to keep the timeline intact.
Steins;Gate 2009 The protagonist, Rintaro Okabe, and his group of friends accidentally create a microwave that can send text messages into the past. Once the messages are sent, Okabe travels between "world lines" and enters the Alpha Timeline where he meets a person using the name John Titor as an alias. Okabe learns that in the year 2036, the world is a dystopia governed by SERN (fictional representation of the actual CERN) and Okabe has to redo the messages he sent to reach the Beta Timeline. As soon as he reverses the world and enters the Beta Timeline, he must travel into the Steins Gate world line in order to prevent World War III.
Tales of Phantasia 1995 This game features time travel both to the past and the future, using ancient technology.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time 1991 The Turtles must battle their way through time before confronting Krang and Shredder.
Thief: Deadly Shadows 2004 This game features time travel to the past in the mission "Shalebridge Cradle."
Time Commando 1996 The game takes place in the near future. The military, with the help of a private corporation, has created a computer capable of simulating any form of combat from any point in history. However, a programmer from a rival corporation infects the system with a virus that creates a time-distortion vortex, which threatens to swallow the world if it is not destroyed. The player controls Stanley Opar, a S.A.V.E (Special Action for Virus Elimination) operative at the center who enters the vortex to try and stop the virus. In order to accomplish this, the player must combat various real-life enemies throughout different time periods.
Time Gal 1985
Time-Gate 1983 The protagonist must travel back through the time-gates to the year before the Squarm invaded, then destroy them to retroactively prevent the invasion.
Time Gate: Knight's Chase 1996 The protagonist time travels from present-day Paris to medieval France to save his girlfriend.
Time Hollow 2008 Using his "Hollow Pen" the main character can draw holes in time to reach through to place or remove objects which affect past events, causing paradox. People who pass through these holes become displaced in time and suffer ill effects.
Timeline 2000 Based on Michael Crichton's 1999 novel of the same name, the game focuses on the main character traveling back to 14th century France to find another researcher that used the same machine.
Time Lord 1991
Time Pilot 1982 The player assumes the role of a pilot of a futuristic fighter jet, trying to rescue fellow pilots trapped in different time eras.
Timequest 1991 The player must travel to various times and places to fix ten key historical events that have been altered by a rogue agent of the Temporal Corps, a branch of the military c. 2090 AD that is dedicated to preventing misuse of time travel technology. Events span from Babylon c. 1361 BC to World War II-era Rome, with several quests involving multiple trips to several different eras (e.g. using fireworks from 9th-century China, lit with a lighter from 1940, to convince Attila the Hun not to attack Rome in 452 AD).
Time Slip 1993 A scientist has to go back in time to stop an alien invasion.
Time Soldiers 1987 Two soldiers must travel through various time periods to rescue their comrades.
TimeSplitters series 2000 - 2005 The player must travel to the past and the future to destroy an evil race of beings called TimeSplitters. The most notable game in the series is TimeSplitters: Future Perfect, in which the player must help both their past and future selves solve puzzles and defeat enemies.
Time Traveler 1980 In this text adventure, the player has to travel back in time to different eras and places in order to obtain 14 rings.
Time Traveler 1991
Time Twist: Rekishi no Katasumi de... 1991
Time Zone 1982
Titanfall 2 2016 Jack Cooper recovers the time gauntlet off of Eli Anderson's body and uses it to switch from the past and present inside of the Complex.
Titanic: Adventure Out of Time 1996 A former British secret agent is sent back in time to the RMS Titanic and must complete a previously failed mission to prevent World War I, the Russian Revolution, and World War II.
To the Moon 2011
Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? 1989 The game and its two derivative television series (Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? and Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?) extensively feature time travel.
World of Warcraft and its subsequent expansion sets 2004–present In this MMORPG, players can visit the Caverns of Time, where they can travel in time to key historical periods of the world of Azeroth. During the Warlords of Draenor expansion, players ventured to an alternate-universe Draenor set 35 years into the past in order to stop the invasion of the Iron Horde into the present day, main-universe Azeroth.
Worms 4: Mayhem 2005 At the start of the second chapter, Professor Worminkle and his classmates, which are the player's worm team, board his time machine to escape the government agents, which they travel to the Medieval times, the Wild West, the Arabian Nights, and the Prehistoric period.
XZR: Hakai no Gūzō 1988
XZR II: Kanketsuhen 1989
Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward 2012 The protagonist Sigma's consciousness is transported 45 years into the future, where a viral pandemic has killed most of the Earth's population. The antagonist Zero III places him in a death game to train him so that he can go back in time and prevent the catastrophe.
Zero Time Dilemma 2016 Two characters are time travelers who have sent their consciousnesses back 45 years to prevent a viral pandemic from destroying human civilization. Most of the game's characters are powerful psychics capable of jumping between alternate timelines at will, and use this ability to survive a death game.
Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II 1994

Time travel as a gameplay element[]

Name Year Description
5D Chess with Multiverse Time Travel 2020 A Chess video game where you can also move your pieces backward or forward in time. There's actually 2 time mechanics here : time-travel that are causing parallel timelines.
Achron 2011 This game has single-player and multi-player free-form time travel. Players can play at different points in time simultaneously and can stop, slow, and fast forward through the flow of time. Players can also send units through time.
Blinx: The Time Sweeper 2002 This is a single-player 3D platformer with time travel. Players can exert some control over time itself; slowing, speeding up, recording, reversing or stopping its flow entirely.
Blinx 2: Masters of Time and Space 2004 This is a single-player 3D platformer with time travel, the sequel to Blinx. Players can exert some control over time itself; slowing, speeding up, recording, reversing or stopping its flow entirely.
Braid 2008 The protagonist uses many time traveling elements incorporated into gameplay. Each chapter explores a different time travel gameplay effect.
Caves of Qud 2015 This roguelike game has some abilities and items that let the player use them to create a point which the player can revert to for a specific number of turns.
Chrono Trigger 1995 The game contains various modes of time travel transport at the player's free will, including portals called "Gates" and, later in gameplay, a flying time machine called the "Epoch".
Chronomaster 1995 About 1/3 of the game is set in "pocket universes" in which time was stopped, while the heroes move in a bubble of normal time. Many puzzles involve restoring normal flow of time in a localized area — only for select few characters and objects.
Chronotron 2008 The player uses a time machine which can go back to a certain point in time to cooperate with himself to complete puzzles.
Cursor*10 2008 Cooperate with your (past) self to click triangles to advance to each level, within a time limit.
Day of the Tentacle 1993 For the majority of the game the player controls three separate characters in the same location in the past, present and future (1770-80s, 1993 and 2190s). Actions in one time period affect the circumstances in proceeding time periods.
Evoland 2 2015 Players travel to four different time periods by using "Magilith" stone pillars. By jumping through time, players can change consequences in the future to alter the world
Final Fantasy XIII-2 2011 The player can move across different timelines and reverse them to redo them by the Historia Crux system.
Forza Motorsport 3 2009 During races, if a player's vehicle is involved in a normally race-ending crash, the player can use the Flashback feature to effectively reverse time in order to rectify the mistake.
Gateways 2012 Gateways is a 2D platform game set in the lab of an inventor called Ed following an outbreak of a number of his more "creative" experiments. Alongside the traditional platform elements such as jumping on enemies' heads, spikes and moving platforms are the gateway guns. The gateway guns allow the player to place two gateways on the walls, floors and ceilings of the lab so that when Ed passes through one, he emerges from the other. One gateway gun not only connects to the other's location, but also its time, allowing Ed to travel back in time and encounter earlier versions of himself.
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 2000 Playable character Link has only three days in order to avoid a moon crash into the country of Termina. In order to return to the first day, he uses the Ocarina of Time, which also allows him to slow the flow of time (or restore if it was slowed) or advance half a day.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 1998 Link can travel back and forth through time via the Master Sword and the Temple of Time to complete puzzles as a young boy or adult man.
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages 2001 Link uses the Harp of Ages to travel between the distant past and the present. Actions in the past can change the present world.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword 2011 The player must activate Timeshift Stones in order to make certain areas time travel, including making robots, mine carts, thorny gates or lasers disappear.
Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2 2017 Several Characters, like Kang or Doctor Strange, have the "Time Manipulation"-Ability to warp time backwards or forwards to affect certain objects.
Thinking with Time Machine 2014 Thinking with Time Machine is an unofficial Portal spinoff. Controlling Chell as she navigates a secret laboratory, the player must use a time machine that can record and playback their actions to create a twin that helps them with the test.
LittleBigPlanet Karting 2012 There is a power-up called the "Fast Forward" that sends players to the location they would be in, in the near future.
The Magic of Scheherazade 1987 The game allows time travel between five different time periods.
Millennia: Altered Destinies 1995 The player plays as a man who is given a time traveling spaceship, and charged with the task of correcting the mass extinction of four sentient alien races.
The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom 2010 A puzzle platform game in which Winterbottom has the ability to record himself to make multiple replaying clones (which can be used as platforms, grab things before falling to their doom, etc.) and to rewind the events since he started the level.
Mystery of Time and Space 2001 Several levels in this escape the room game involve traveling between different points in time and changing objects in order to affect the game state in other points in time.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time series 2003–2005 This is a sub-series of Prince of Persia, consisting of The Sands of Time, Warrior Within, The Two Thrones and The Forgotten Sands. The Prince continuously travels back through time to repair his errors, each time causing a disaster. In the first game, the prince travels back through time to prevent himself from unleashing the sands, therefore causing the Dahaka to pursue him, as seen in Warrior Within; he travels through time to prevent the Sands of Time from being created. In The Two Thrones, his stopping the creation of the Sands of Time resurrects the evil Vizier. In The Forgotten Sands, powers of reversing time are bestowed to the Prince by Razia, Queen of the Marid.
Race Driver: Grid 2008 During races, if a player's vehicle is involved in a normally race-ending crash, the player can use the Flashback feature to effectively reverse time in order to rectify the mistake.
Sheep, Dog 'n' Wolf 2001 In Level 8, Ralph Wolf gets a magical chronometer which he can use to travel back to the Primordial age to plant seeds and move boulders to manipulate placement of trees and rocks to solve the puzzle.
Singularity 2010 Players can use a device called the TMD to cause objects to age and revert aging, and at some points to travel back and forth through time.
Sonic CD 1993 Sonic is supposed to time travel into the past to save the future from the evil schemes of Dr. Eggman. The player can find a "past"-labeled checkpoint and gather enough momentum to travel into the past. If Sonic travels into the future without destroying the robot teleporters in the past, he travels to the "Bad Future", and sees the respective zone fallen in ruin and pollution. If Sonic goes to the past and destroys the robot teleporters (or collects the Time Stones), he saves the future and creates a "Good Future" where nature and technology are in balance and co-exist with one another.
Superhot 2016 Though the game follows traditional first-person shooter gameplay mechanics, with the player attempting to take out enemy targets using guns and other weapons, time within the game progresses at normal speed only when the player moves.
Super Scribblenauts 2010 Players can spawn a time machine and travel to either prehistoric, Medieval, Western, future and ancient Egyptian times.
Tales of Maj'Eyal 2010 This modern tiled rogue-like game allows to time travel some turns back and change the history, or some turns forward and peek the future using particular abilities of Chronomancy-related classes.
TimeShift 2007 Players can stop, slow, and reverse the flow of time during few seconds to aid them during firefights or in order to circumnavigate environmental hazards such as fire and electrified water.
YesterMorrow 2020 The heroine can switch between future and past game worlds ("Several years in the future/past"), aging or de-aging herself in the process. The changes to the past world affect the future one. In the future there are hostile monsters, much of the infrastructure is ruined, but some artificial barriers are destroyed too. Thus, most puzzles involve circumnavigating obstacles through time travel. Also, other characters react to the heroine's words differently in different times.
YU-NO: A Girl Who Chants Love at the Bound of this World 1996 The player character gets hold of a hand-held contraption dubbed the Reflector Device, which allows one to mark their position as a "jewel-save" in the game's branching timeline map by using up one from a limited set of collectible jewels; the timeline is displayed via the Auto Diverge Mapping System (A.D.M.S.) and clicking on a "jewel-save" both returns the player along with their current inventory to that spot and returns the respective jewel for reuse.
Zeit² 2011 Players can actively rewind time and play cooperatively with their former play, which is displayed as a black shadow. They can also fast-forward time and basically double the game speed at will.

Board games[]

Various kinds of family and simulation games exist, where people play face-to-face or around a table, or within earshot of each other, or passing written notes around, where the topic or mechanics of the game include time travel.

Card games[]

  • Chrononauts
  • Dino Hunt by Steve Jackson Games
  • Doctor Who: Battles in Time, designer uncredited in 2006 for ; collectible card game and magazine
  • The Doctor Who Collectible Card Game, designed by Eamon Bloomfield and Paul Viall in 1996 for ; players "overwhelm" their opponent
  • Towers in Time, designed by Mike Sager in 1994 for ; collectible card game

Role-playing games[]

Game expansions[]

References[]

  1. ^ a b "Time Matters". GamesTM. Imagine Publishing (88): 84–89.
  2. ^ Radtke, C.; Enk, Bryan; Frushtick, Russell; Swiderski, Adam. "UGO's Guide to Time Travel - Time Travel in Video Games". UGO Networks. Archived from the original on 2008-10-03. Retrieved 2009-10-03.
  3. ^ Marriott, Scott. "Overview - Ape Escape". allgame. Retrieved 2010-11-11.
  4. ^ Knight, Kyle. "Overview - Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure". allgame. Retrieved 2010-11-11.
  5. ^ Miller, Skyler. "Overview - Bill & Ted's Excellent Video Game Adventure". allgame. Retrieved 2010-11-11.
  6. ^ Most notably the Chronomancer supplement for 2nd edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.
  7. ^ rpg.net.[1] Retrieved 28 January 2013.

External links[]

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