Cosmonaut Studios will release Eternal Threads—a single-player, first-person story-driven puzzle game themed around time manipulation, choice, and consequence—for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC via Steam in Q3 2021, the developer announced.
Based in Liverpool, England, Cosmonaut Studios is formed of former Magenta Software staff, which developed the Buzz! Junior series and InviZimals: The Lost Kingdom for Sony Interactive Entertainment, as well as a number of movie tie-in games such as Disney’s Treasure Planet for PlayStation and Stuart Little 3: Big Photo Adventure for PlayStation 2.
Here is an overview of Eternal Threads, via its Steam page:
About
Eternal Threads is a single-player, first-person story-driven puzzle game of time manipulation, choice and consequence.
As an operative tasked with fixing corruption in the timestream, you have been sent to the North of England in May 2015, where six people died in a house fire. Prohibited from simply stopping the fire, you must instead manipulate the choices made by the housemates in the week leading up to it so that they all survive the event.
From the outset, you have free and complete reign to explore the seven day timeline before the fire. You can watch and alter the significant events from the entire week as many times as you like and in whatever order you wish. Some decisions will have only minor effects on the timeline, moving objects around the house or revealing deeper stories and secrets. Major changes however, rewrite the timeline by changing existing events, adding new events and even replacing other events entirely.
You must traverse up and down this timeline, changing decisions at different moments throughout the week so that their effects interact and combine together to save all six housemates.
However, it is not just the housemates who have choices. Each of them can be saved from the fire in multiple ways, with each outcome having a profound effect on their lives in the future. Will you just search for the quickest and easiest solution, or can you find the best possible outcome for everyone?
Ultimately, everything is about choices and consequences.
Key Features
- Choose How You Want to Follow the Game’s story – Want to follow each of the six characters’ stories Pulp Fiction style? That’s fine. Want to watch the whole thing like Memento, with the final event first and then moving back in time to see what caused it afterwards? That’s okay, too. Or maybe you’re old school and just want to watch things in good-old chronological order? You can do that as well.
- Watch and Change Things as Many Times as You Like – Can’t remember exactly what happened in an event? Changed a decision and you’re not sure you like the consequences? That’s fine. Just pop back along the timeline and watch and change whatever you like, whenever you like, as many times as you like.
- Change the Past to Affect the Future – Setting up temporary base in the house mere hours after the fire, provides a unique perspective on events. As you look back through the timeline, past events play out in front of you in ghostly form, with the smoke and fire damaged house a constant reminder of what is to come. In addition, as you manipulate the past, the environment can be reset around you to match the changes taking place. Some new objects will appear, others will move around the house and the contents of rooms can change substantially as you change the past.
Watch a trailer and pair of gameplay videos below. View a set of screenshots at the gallery.
Trailer
Gameplay
Cause and Effect
Time Manipulation
