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 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.

Let’s address the temporal elephant in the room first. Today Secret Mode and Cosmonaut Studios can confirm the PS4 and Xbox One editions of Eternal Threadshave been delayed and will now launch later in 2022.

The PC (Steam) edition is unaffected by this move and will release as planned on May 19, 2022.

We know what you’re thinking: for a game about altering the future we really should have seen this coming, but some futures, it seems, are harder to predict than others. Rather than be constrained to a definitive timeline we shall share the new release date as soon as we’re happy that Eternal Threads on console is the game it was always meant to be, without introducing crunch into our development processes.

With that piece of timeline-shifting news shared and eyes firmly focused on next week’s PC release, we are excited to share the How To Play Eternal Threads trailer. Digging into the time changing mechanics at the core of Eternal Threads, today’s video explores the game’s unique sandbox narrative structure and shows players how to unpick various story conundrums by altering the choices made by the cast.

Key Features

• Choose how you want to follow the game’s story: Want to follow each of the six characters’ stories ‘Pulp Fiction’ style? 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? Or maybe you’re old school and just want to watch things in good-old chronological order? You decide.
• 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.
• Just like a Rubik's cube, the game becomes more difficult the closer you get to a solution - saving one housemate may cause others to die.
• Investigate the housemate's relationships and secrets to allow for more informed decision choices to be made.
• Discover information within the past events to gain access to locked and hidden areas within the house.
• As you manipulate the past, the environment around you can change as the butterfly effect travels forward in time to affects the future.
• Explore the house and find personal possessions, letters and phone messages to give you more insight into their lives.

Eternal Threads is coming to PC (Steam) on May 19, 2022, followed by a Nintendo Switch, PS4 and Xbox One versions later in 2022.