Key facts
- Cheapest right now
- € Standard · Global · Gamivo
- Live offers
- 10 offers · 9 stores
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Films can only show you a time loop. Games can drop you inside one and leave you there until you work it out, which is why the idea has aged so well in this medium and so badly in most others. We went through the catalogue for the ones that are on PC and have live offers right now, and ended up with thirteen.
Then we looked at what they cost, and the list got a lot more interesting. Ten of the thirteen are under six euros. Only three ask for more than fifteen. That is most of a genre for the price of one new release, so the honest way to read what follows is as a shopping list rather than a ranking.
Below, each game sits with the others that use time in the same way: the ones that invented the grammar, the ones built on repeating a single day, the ones where rewinding is a tool rather than a story, and the two big recent releases where the shops disagree enough that it is worth looking twice.
The three that wrote the grammar
CHRONO TRIGGER is where most people's memory of this idea starts. Square Enix's PC version keeps the original structure intact: eras you can hop between, characters you recruit across centuries, and endings that change depending on when you decide to face the final fight. Steam has it at Very Positive, 10,638 positive reviews out of 12,089, and the Standard edition is going for € with 29 offers spread over 17 shops.
Double Fine's Day of the Tentacle Remastered does the same trick as a comedy. Three characters, three periods, one plumbing problem, and puzzles that only work if you accept that flushing something in the past changes what is available in the present. Steam verdict: Overwhelmingly Positive, 3,413 out of 3,519. Standard: € (with coupon GOCDKEYS10).
And then CHRONO CROSS: The Radical Dreamers Edition, which is the one place in this list where we have to slow down. It is the only Mixed verdict of the thirteen: 1,340 positive out of 2,161. The complaints are mostly about the state of the re-release rather than the game underneath, and the game underneath is a strange, beautiful thing about parallel worlds with over forty recruitable characters and a soundtrack people still argue about. Standard is € (with coupon GCDKGamivo). Buy it knowing what you are getting.
The same day, over and over, until it clicks
Three games here, and they share a structure that is very hard to do well: you die or the day ends, you keep what you learned, you go again.
The Sexy Brutale is a masked ball in a mansion where every guest is murdered on schedule and you replay the same twelve hours learning who does what to whom. Cavalier Game Studios never let it get frustrating, which is the hard part. Very Positive on Steam, 2,624 out of 2,884, and the Standard is currently € (with coupon GCDKGamivo) across 12 offers in 10 shops.
Overwhelmingly Positive, 7,497 out of 7,729: In Stars And Time has the best reception of anything in this section, and it earns it by treating the loop as a psychological problem rather than a puzzle. You are the only one who remembers. Everyone else gets to start fresh. It is an RPG made by insertdisc5 that will quietly wreck you, and the Standard is € (with coupon GCDKGamivo).
The Holy Gosh Darn from Perfectly Paranormal is the loud one: an angel, a swear-filled script, and a countdown you keep resetting. Its 262 positive reviews out of 273 are a small sample, so treat the verdict as a strong hint rather than a guarantee. Standard: € (with coupon AUGGOC10).
Rewinding as a verb, not as a plot
Two very different games that share one idea: time is something you operate, like a switch.
In Braid, Anniversary Edition, dying is not a failure state at all, because you hold a button and the mistake un-happens. Thekla's reissue adds a long developer commentary that is worth more than most making-of documentaries. Steam: Very Positive, 1,599 out of 1,738. The Standard is at € (with coupon GCDKGamivo) right now.
Eternal Threads asks something stranger. Six people died in a house fire, you can move through the week that led to it, and every small decision you change rewrites who survives. Cosmonaut Studios built it as a puzzle box made of relationships. Very Positive, 461 out of 530, from 19 offers in 14 shops, and the Standard today is € (with coupon AUGGOC10).
STEINS;GATE, the one you mostly read
Almost no gameplay, a microwave that sends text messages into the past, and one of the best-reviewed things we have on the site: Overwhelmingly Positive, 24,333 positive out of 25,086, which is by far the biggest sample in this list. MAGES. built it as a visual novel, so if you want something to play with your hands, look elsewhere; if you want the single best-written time travel story on PC, this is it.
It is also the exception on price. Every other cheap game here is cheap in the same boring way, whereas STEINS;GATE only has 8 offers in 5 shops and its list mixes formats that are genuinely not the same purchase, so the number you see depends on which one you land on. The figure we quote, €, is the Standard edition. Check the format label before you pay, not after.
The two big ones, and where comparing really pays
These are the only two in the list above fifteen euros, and they are also the two with an enormous spread of sellers, which is not a coincidence: recent releases get listed everywhere, and everywhere prices differently.
Digimon Story Time Stranger has 95 live offers across 22 shops, more than any other game on this page. Media.Vision's RPG sends you back through a war between worlds and lets the past be edited, and Steam has it Very Positive with 14,002 positive reviews out of 15,733. Our page to buy Digimon Story Time Stranger key puts all 95 side by side; the cheapest Standard right now is € (with coupon GOCDK13).
If you would rather see who you are handing your money to first, here is how those shops score:
- Lootbar — 4.9 / 5 over 41,000+ reviews.
- Cdkeys Com — 4.8 / 5 over 224,000+ reviews.
- YUPLAY — 4.8 / 5 over 2,000+ reviews.
- Instant Gaming — 4.7 / 5 over 833,000+ reviews.
- Greenmangaming — 4.7 / 5 over 43,000+ reviews.
- Kinguin — 4.6 / 5 over 120,000+ reviews.
- Fanatical — 4.6 / 5 over 78,000+ reviews.
- Eneba — 4.4 / 5 over 312,000+ reviews.
- Gameboost — 4.4 / 5 over 15,000+ reviews.
- Driffle — 4.4 / 5 over 9,000+ reviews.
Cronos: The New Dawn is the other one. Bloober Team doing survival horror that moves between a ruined present and the moment things went wrong, with the studio's usual weight on atmosphere over combat. Steam has it at Very Positive, 6,635 positive out of 7,627. There are 74 offers in 20 shops and the Standard sits at € (with coupon GCDKGamivo), which is a long way below what the storefronts ask.
When the time travel is a joke about video games
Two games use the idea as commentary on the medium itself, and both are very funny about it.
The Messenger starts as an 8-bit ninja platformer and, at a specific moment, becomes a 16-bit one, complete with a soundtrack that shifts with it. Sabotage turned a gag into a whole second half. Very Positive, 9,782 out of 10,633, 20 offers in 14 shops, Standard at € (with coupon GCDKGamivo).
Evoland 2 from Shiro Games does the same thing across the whole history of the form: you walk into a different era and the genre changes underneath you, from top-down adventure to fighting game to shoot 'em up. Very Positive, 1,622 out of 1,843. Standard: € (with coupon GCDKGamivo).
Everything under three euros, in one place
Six of the thirteen are currently below three euros for the Standard edition. Prices move, so this is today's snapshot, not a promise.
| Game | Standard, today | Steam verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Eternal Threads | € (with coupon AUGGOC10) | Very Positive |
| Braid, Anniversary Edition | € (with coupon GCDKGamivo) | Very Positive |
| The Messenger | € (with coupon GCDKGamivo) | Very Positive |
| Evoland 2 | € (with coupon GCDKGamivo) | Very Positive |
| The Sexy Brutale | € (with coupon GCDKGamivo) | Very Positive |
| The Holy Gosh Darn | € (with coupon AUGGOC10) | Very Positive |
What we would actually buy
If you have never played the classic and want to see where all of this came from, start with CHRONO TRIGGER. It is the cheapest history lesson on the page and it has not dated the way its contemporaries have.
If you want the loop to hurt a bit, In Stars And Time. If you want it to make you laugh, Day of the Tentacle Remastered, with The Holy Gosh Darn as the rude modern follow-up.
If you are buying something new this month, Cronos: The New Dawn and Digimon Story Time Stranger are the two where the gap between the cheapest and the dearest seller is wide enough that ten minutes of comparing is paid work. And if the budget is essentially nothing, Eternal Threads and Braid together cost less than a coffee, which is a ridiculous sentence to write about two games this good.
One last thing worth repeating: every figure above is the Standard edition, and every figure moves. The cheap ones move fastest.
I have been a gamer for as long as I can remember, and for the last 14 years I have been making life easier for other gamers. CEO and co-founder of Gocdkeys.
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