‘Eternal Threads’ Asks You To Manipulate Time To Save Lives On Switch Later This Year

Secret Mode is a pretty apt name for a publisher, isn’t it? Especially today, as they’ve been keeping a pretty big secret from us. The studio has announced that it will be bringing Liverpool-based Cosmonaut Studios’ Eternal Threads to Switch sometime this year.

The game was announced last year, but until today, we had no idea that a Switch version was ever in the works. It comes out on PC, PS4, and Xbox One next month, but really, this is a puzzle game about manipulating time to save a group of six people from a fatal house fire. This is perfect for those cosy night-time playthroughs, just like reading a murder mystery!.

Secret Mode has said that Eternal Threads is all about choice and consequence, as you must influence the six victim’s decisions rather than directly interact with them. One influence may help another be warier, but it might lead someone else to an early death.

Here’s what to expect from the game:

About Eternal Threads
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.

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.

We don’t have a firm release date for the Switch version yet, so we’ll have to watch our friends with all of those other consoles enviously when they can pick up the game on 19th May.

Will you be picking up Eternal Threads? Will you wait for the Switch release? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.