Time in video games is a valuable thing. Unlike in the real world where it proceeds in a linear fashion, in a game it may speed up, slow down or even go backwards. There are some games where controlling time becomes a crucial and fascinating game mechanic. The best of these integrate your time travelling powers with both characters and narrative to create a compelling experience.
This list includes 26 games from the last 25 years, with 146 likes. They come from a range of different genres and play-styles and are all good games if you want to manipulate time to win.
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Trollhunters: Defenders of Arcadia
Rating: PEGI 7+, ESRB EVERYONE 10+
Release Date: 24/09/2020
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One
Genres: Action, Platform and Puzzle
Developer: @Outright_Games
Players: You can play with 2 players in the same room
Trollhunters: Defenders of Arcadia is a running and jumping game in the world of Trollhunters. You play Jim Lake Jr. and work to stop Porgon the Trickster Troll and his sneaky plans. With the help of other characters and their abilities you solve...
Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time
Rating: PEGI 12+, ESRB EVERYONE 10+
Release Date: 09/11/1996, updated in 2020
Platforms: GameCube, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Wii, PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and iOS
Genres: Action, Adventure and Platform
Developer: @ToysForBob
Players: You can play with 4 players in the same room
Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time is the latest game in the Crash Bandicoot series, where you play a genetically enhanced bandicoot called Crash and run, jump and bash your way through levels while avoiding hazards.
To The Moon
Release Date: 10/11/2011, updated in 2020
Platforms: Android, Mac, Nintendo Switch, PC and iOS
Genres: Adventure, Narrative and Puzzle
Developer: @Reives_FreeBird
Players: This is a single player game
To the Moon is a story-adventure following two doctors trying to fulfil a dying man's last wish to go to the moon. With only a few ways to interact with the game, you control the doctors, exploring and solving puzzles to reconstruct the dying man's...
Return of the Obra Dinn
Rating: PEGI 16+, ESRB MATURE 17+
Release Date: 18/10/2019
Genres: Narrative and Puzzle
Developer: @Dukope
You play a shipping company agent assessing what happened on board a fictional East India Company ship where all the passengers have all mysteriously died. Exploring the ship, you can revisit the moment of death for each body in order to identify each...
Mini Metro
Rating: PEGI 3+, ESRB EVERYONE
Release Date: 06/01/2015
Platforms: Android, Mac, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4 and iOS
Genres: Simulation and Strategy
Developer: @Dinopoloclub
Create an ordered, efficient underground train system. It sounds like hard work, but the simple Tube-map visuals, calm music, and streamlined interactions make this relaxing, like sudoku. Dip your toe in this strategy challenge and keep the system...
A Hat in Time
Rating: PEGI 7+, ESRB TEEN
Release Date: 05/10/2017, updated in 2019
Platforms: Mac, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One
Genres: Action, Adventure, Open World, Platform and Puzzle
Developer: @HatInTime
A Hat in Time is a running, jumping and exploring game inspired by retro platform games like Super Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie, Spyro the Dragon and Psychonauts. As you explore each of the worlds, you discover characters to talk to, enemies to battle and an...
Everything
Release Date: 21/03/2017, updated in 2019
Platforms: Mac, Nintendo Switch, PC and PlayStation 4
Genres: Adventure, Narrative, Open World and Simulation
Developer: @DavidOreilly
This is an unusual game that simulates a world where you can become any object. It sounds strange and not much fun, but the enjoyment is in discovering how small or how big a thing you can become. From tiny atoms to whole planets and everything in between.
Quantum League
Expected Rating: PEGI 12+, ESRB TEEN
Release Date: 26/05/2020
Genres: Action, Shooting, Simulation and Sports
Developer: @NimbleGiantEnt
Players: You can play this with 4 players online
Quantum League is a shooting game where you go back in time when you die, to play through the same loop of the battle. You have three lives and so play through the same short gun-fight three times. But each time you have more knowledge about what the...
Superhot
Rating: PEGI 12+, ESRB TEEN
Release Date: 25/02/2016, updated in 2019
Platforms: Mac, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Stadia, Web Browser and Xbox One
Genres: Action and Shooting
Developer: @SUPERHOTTHEGAME
Superhot is a shooting game with a twist. Time only moves forward (bullets, enemies, damage) when you move your character. This is still a violent game, in fact, in slow motion, it feels more violent.
Disc Room
Rating: PEGI 16+, ESRB TEEN
Release Date: 22/10/2020
Platforms: Nintendo Switch and PC
Genres: Action and Puzzle
Developer: @DevolverDigital
Disc Room is an action survival game set in a sprawling intergalactic slaughterhouse. You are a scientist from the future exploring the facility and must get through each room that is filled with sharp discs by running and dodging. You have special...
Okami
Release Date: 20/04/2006, updated in 2012
Platforms: Nintendo DS, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Wii, PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One
Genres: Action, Adventure, Fighting, Narrative, Open World and Puzzle
Developer: @PG_kamiya
Okami (Okamiden on Nintendo DS) is an unusual action-adventure. Combat is interactions are achieved with brush strokes rather than weapons. It has a unique visual style that invites you to inhabit its painted world with brushstrokes of your own. Whether...
Dreamscaper
Release Date: 08/04/2020, updated in 2020
Genres: Action, Adventure and Fighting
Developer: @DreamscaperGame
Dreamscaper is an adventure where you control a woman's subconscious whilst she dreams. In the dreams you battle enemies with different surrealist abilities and weapons: finger guns, move the earth, control time, warp landscapes, many melee weapons and...
Minit
Release Date: 28/08/2018
Platforms: Android, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One
Genres: Adventure, Fighting and Puzzle
Minit is retro puzzle game where you complete small tasks in within a 60 second time frame. You must dodge or fight foes, cut through the undergrowth, explore your world and find keys and swords. You start from the same place for each of your 60 second...
Burnout Paradise
Release Date: 16/03/2018, updated in 2018
Platforms: GameCube, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S
Genres: Open World, Racing and Simulation
Developer: @CriterionGames
Players: You can play with 2 players in the same room and up to 4 players online
The Burnout series is an over-the-top racing game where you’re encouraged to crash, bash and ram other cars. Throughout the series the bravado and crashing increases, but they all have the same novel core gameplay.
Omensight
Release Date: 15/05/2018
Genres: Action, Fighting, Narrative and Strategy
Developer: @SpearheadMtl
Omensight is a brawling adventure game where you play the role of Harbinger, a mythical warrior who only appears in times of crisis. As night falls, you witness this destruction of the world at the hands of a dark God but can relive this final day to...
Alt-Frequencies
Release Date: 16/05/2019
Developer: @AccidentalQ
Alt-Frequencies is an adventure game played by listen to a series of radio shows. It's a story about people stuck in a time loop without realising it and what you can do to save them.
The Gardens Between
Release Date: 20/09/2018
Platforms: Android, Mac, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and iOS
Genres: Adventure and Puzzle
Developer: @TheVoxelAgents
The Gardens Between is a puzzle game set in dreamlike island gardens where you play as best friends Arina and Frendt. You work around the island levels collecting balls of light in your lantern, manipulating time to solve puzzles and removing obstacles....
Evergate
Release Date: 01/09/2020
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC and Xbox Series X|S
Genres: Platform and Puzzle
Developer: @StnLntrnGames
Evergate is a running and jumping game where you can slow down time to make difficult jumps through hand-drawn environments. It combines the need for timing and puzzle solving in a game that slowly tells the story of the characters you meet.
YesterMorrow
Rating: PEGI 7+, ESRB EVERYONE
Release Date: 05/11/2020
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One
Genres: Narrative, Platform and Puzzle
Developer: @BitmapGalaxy
YesterMorrow is running, jumping, climbing and collecting game where you play Yui, whose world has been destroyed and family kidnapped. To save them you journey through the four islands, forest, desert, ice, and clockwork, to collect "everlight" and...
Last Day of June
Release Date: 31/08/2017
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC and PlayStation 4
Developer: @Ovosonico
Last Day of June is a game about a couple called Carl and June, who suffer a tragedy when a car accident takes June's life and leaves Carl in a wheelchair. You control Carl, remembering life with June and discover that you can interact with her...
Framed
Release Date: 12/11/2014, updated in 2018
Platforms: Android, Nintendo Switch, PC and iOS
Genres: Action, Narrative, Platform and Puzzle
Framed is a puzzle adventure where you re-arrange panels of an animated comic book to change the outcome and timeline of the story. With a noir-detective look, the puzzles start simply but soon get complex.
Creature in the Well
Release Date: 06/09/2019
Genres: Fighting and Puzzle
Developer: @FlightSchoolHQ
Creature in the Well is a pinball-inspired fighting game that reimagines the ball bouncing fun of Arkanoid. You play the last remaining robot who ventures deep into a desert mountain to restore power to an ancient facility and save the village that...
Degrees of Separation
Release Date: 14/02/2019
Developer: @DofsGame
Players: You can play with 2 players in the same room and up to 2 players online
Degrees of Separation is a running and jumping game where you control two characters from different seasons, Ember and Rime. Each has different abilities to change the environment and help you to progress: freezing water, melting ice and the like.
Space Crew
Release Date: 15/10/2020
Genres: Action, Adventure, Shooting, Simulation and Strategy
Developer: @CurveDigital
Space Crew is a strategy game where you use a team of characters to control a spaceship and explore the galaxy. Unlike other space flight games, you don't directly control your craft but get your crew to look after different aspects of the mission. It's...
The Messenger
Release Date: 30/08/2019, updated in 2020
Genres: Action, Fighting and Platform
Developer: @SabotageQc
The Messenger is a platform game where you play as a young ninja after his village is attacked by a demon army. You must deliver a scroll, fighting enemies and pulling off complex acrobatic manoeuvres along the way. The game is inspired by the classic...
10 Second Ninja X
Release Date: 29/06/2016
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S
Developer: @GameDesignDan
10 Second Ninja X is a super-fast puzzle game with a difference: every level lasts ten seconds or less. In each level, your challenge is to destroy all of the enemies on screen before the timer runs out. The faster you complete each level, the higher...
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