The use of time travel and time alterations has certainly presented a mixed bag across entertainment in recent years. Generally speaking, in terms of an ongoing or long-running narrative, it’s best to end at the point of time manipulation becoming possible and adhere to the lesson beaten into Einstein in the Rick and Morty episode A Rickle in Time.
In video games, however, messing with time offers the chance to play with some unique and creative mechanics. Recently, we’ve seen a fair few hit creations toy with time and receive popularity and praise for doing so. Next up to join the time-bending ranks is Chrono Odyssey, an MMORPG that’s received a tremendous amount of hype long before a release date has even been announced.
The Clue is in the Title
Chrono Odyssey may have surged to the headlines as the first of the next generation of MMORPGs, being built on Unreal Engine 5, boasting superb monster designs and a vast fantastical open world to explore, but based on the name, the time-altering mechanics will be what takes center stage when players finally get the game booted up. After all, “chronos” refers to time moving, and “odyssey” means a long adventure.
As has been detailed on the game’s Steam page, players will get to make use of the Chronotector. This artifact lets you rewind your time and stop the time around monsters. It adds another layer to your combat, pulling you out of simply button-mashing attack and dodge buttons while staring up at colossal beasts. You’ll even be able to delve back in time to experience what happened to past generations of the open world before it all changed.
Importantly, as the title suggests, being able to manipulate time is a core feature of the whole experience for all players. You won’t need to be a mage, warlock, or other kind of fantasy class to wield these time-altering powers. This is necessary because the story revolves around breaking the fabric of time to explore further and discover more secrets, greatly expanding the open world from just Setera to Setera on several different timelines.
Playing with Time is a Hot Trend Right Now
As if the hype surrounding the gameplay trailers wasn’t enough, the theme of playing with time has become very popular in entertainment. On the big screen, one-off flicks like Tenet, The Tomorrow War, and The Adam Project have all landed strong stories while playing with time. Avengers: Endgame also famously brought time travel into the equation, and while it would have been fine for a finale, it’s become one of the key MCU failings since.
You can see the trend even hitting home in one of the most trend-driven corners of entertainment. While not one of the things that are the most important to know about PayPal casinos – which tend to be security, bonus quality, and game selection – on these sites, developers create games with trending themes to try to appeal to players. This is why some of the biggest recent releases include Time Spinners, Book of Time, Timelines, and Shogun of Time at the site with the best review score among all PayPal casinos.
As delved into above, having a time-altering mechanic in a fantasy MMORPG can present a great many opportunities for creative and dynamic gameplay. It certainly has in other recent narrative-driven games that have landed well. Perhaps the biggest of these, in terms of budget and profile, have been Returnal and Deathloop, which leaned heavily into the mystery angle to enforce the desire to explore the time loops and breaks.
Making use of time-altering mechanics looks to be a very attractive part of the Chrono Odyssey pitch and would certainly demonstrate the power of UE5 in the MMORPG space. For now, though, gamers are just waiting for a firm release date to be announced.
