Whether it's Life is Strange (Season One), The Forgotten City, Outer Wilds, and so on, wrapping mechanics around time travel seems to be one of the most effective hooks in games.  If you find some type of tangible wrinkle that segregates yourself from the pack – whether thematically or mechanically – it's like most other elements will naturally click in place.  Rookie developer Cosmonaut Studios is among the latest to put that to the test with Eternal Threads.  Although sticking closer to a passive narrative adventure doesn't suggest the fullest potential of its core concept, it's still tough to fault when the end result remains satisfying.

Although tantalizing and powerful, time travel is also incredibly dangerous.  Even before reaching the main menu, you're greeted by Dr. Sarah Baker's dispatch about how her mysterious organization has fundamentally disrupted the time stream.  One such butterfly effect from these shenanigans has left six people dead after an house fire in Alderbeck, UK.  As Operative 43, you're tasked with saving all of them.  But it's not as simple as rewinding time and installing a state-of-the-art sprinkler system.  The rules of this world don't allow for sweeping changes, but rather surgical alterations throughout the past week leading up to the tragic event.  These seemingly minor tweaks will cause slightly revised or a brand-new series of events.

You're given tremendous freedom after the opening tutorial.  After following instructions from mission control and planting a few temporal doodads, your means of reviewing highlights of that past week is done by selecting an event on the time map and walking over to the highlighted location to start that video.  It's essentially watching a bunch of in-game cutscenes to place how each event connects and further understand each character; a close example would be Tacoma, but instead of color-coded figures these are dithered Unity Engine models filtered through 43's temporal remote.  Nestled within this conceit are the deeper secrets the six victims had that'll unfold as your decisions daisy-chain into a new official storyline, with disparate means of saving these people.

That's not to say these stories represent a grand conspiracy; in fact, they're all rather mundane.  The contrast between the now-charred husk of a house and all of the events running in the background captures an uneasy vibe; seeing how they interacted in what used to be the kitchen, someone's bedroom, a living room, etc. feels more intense with a rainstorm in the background.  Cosmonaut's design does a great job of intensifying the atmosphere with other little touches too, like assistant drones dimming the lights whenever you're watching a clip, your handheld viewer's limited power leaving certain scenes left unfinished, or discovering how to get through locked doors; that said, the latter example's game logic stretches believability.  The extent of this house's damage would demand firefighters break open everything to ensure no lasting embers were left.

The connected web viewed through the time map feels akin to maximizing production in 4X titles or hacking mini-games.  It's like a flow chart with continually-adjusting feedback while flipping through various switches. It's also easy to follow since 43 diligently titles each event after watching it.  This, along with the time map's intuitive UI, succeeds in cataloguing pertinent info for the player.  The next path is often unclear, but that’s also the point.  The game's design is less interested in deducing yourself to a quick victory and more about exploring outcomes with a fine-tooth comb.  There are nearly 200 timeline events to view, but roughly a quarter can be manipulated in its default mode.  The rest are static scenes meant for you to spend more time with these people, for better or worse.   


I'll admit: so many extraneous scenes does trigger the editor part of my brain.  The yearning to cut, cut, cut in the name of succinctness is typically my reflex; then again, that fluff is necessary to learn more about each victims' day-to-day life.  From debt spiraling to anger management issues, these personal dramas are there to establish stakes and compel you to want to rescue everyone.  Even then, there still could’ve been some surgical slices to view everything at a quicker pace, especially since that's required to see the best ending.  Cosmonaut's best counter is an Abridged Mode, which modestly reduces the amount of total & choice-making scenes at the cost of seeing an impressive climax.  Although I respect the dual options, one mode with a better eye for deliberate trimming feels like the best outcome in my view.

The silver lining to said fluff is that it's - mostly - of good quality.  Not every performance hits the mark, but the majority professionally capture their characters' foibles and personalities.  It's also helpful how David Bottomley's script captures the typical, occasionally to its own detriment.  Those understated moments like a landlord handing down his late mom's clothes to the new tenet are the type of side stories that make this cluster of people feel like a small community.  Influencing grounded, adult decisions and seeing those consequences also makes you realize just how rarely the industry bothers taking these routes.  Given how you're exploring their final week together, it makes sense to frame it as a slice-of-life anthology.

In keeping with the other greats, Eternal Threads' core time travel conceit leads to a mechanical loop that keeps on giving.  The ways in which its rules and logic are played with leads to genuine surprises in both its gameplay and storytelling.  But there's that issue of how long to keep up the same parlor trick.  Although spending more time in non-interactive scenes provides a stronger motivation in saving these victims, there's a limit as to what’s relevant and what isn't.  Cosmonaut Studios has a habit of mismanaging that, but not enough so to dismiss this engaging ride.

Contractor by trade and writer by hobby, Lee's obnoxious criticisms have found a way to be featured across several gaming sites: N4G, VGChartz, Gaming Nexus, DarkStation, and TechRaptor! He started gaming in the mid-90s and has had the privilege in playing many games across a plethora of platforms. Reader warning: each click given to his articles only helps to inflate his Texas-sized ego. Proceed with caution.