Pick a year with , and . (Shift ×10), PgUp/PgDn (±50), B for where you left, or [ ] to jump between threads and quest years; Enter travels. V compares your world with the world without you; Space plays history forward. Travelling does not age you. Acting in the past rewrites everything after it.
| WASD / arrows | Move (on water you take a boat) |
| Facing | You face the way you walk. Attacks lock on to the nearest foe in front of you (gold ring). |
| J | Sword (hold to keep swinging) |
| K | Bow (hold to keep firing and strafe around your target) |
| Space / Shift | Dodge roll (you can't be hit mid-roll) |
| G (hold) | Rewind 2–10 seconds: the longer you hold, the further back. Your past self fights beside you. |
| Q | Drink a potion |
| E | Talk |
| R | Rest a season in a village: heal, restock arrows |
| M | Travel map: pick a place, pay for the road in months of your life |
| B | Mount or dismount your horse (markets sell them from the Bronze Age) |
| T | The Chronoscope: see the future, travel in time |
| V | Watch your world and the world without you diverge, side by side, from your latest deed |
| L | Journal |
| P / Esc | Pause: save to a slot, load, return to the title (the game also autosaves) |
| I | Inventory: ↑↓ choose, Enter wield / wear / stow, X drop |
| U | Conceal everything out of its time here; U again to take it out |
| In dialogs | 1–9 choose · Enter/E accept · Esc decline |
| In the Chronoscope | , . or ←→ year (Shift ×10) · PgUp/PgDn ±50 · [ ] jump between threads and quest years · B: back to where you left · Home: now · Enter: travel |
Enemies flash a red ring before they strike: roll out of the way. Bosses glare a red line before they charge. Out of combat you slowly recover, faster in a village.
Who is at war comes from the history itself: realms that took land from each other in the last 20 years. On those borders their soldiers clash, raid villages, and villagers flee. A realm's soldiers attack you only if your people are at war with them, or if you have given them reason. Strike a neutral soldier and their comrades turn on you; defend a realm's land and it warms to you. The place line under the year tells you where you stand; the journal (L) lists the realms.
Once you have the Chronoscope, hold G and the world slows while you choose how far back to slip, 2 to 10 seconds; release to go. Everything still alive goes back (positions, wounds, arrows in flight), but the dead stay dead, and you keep your own wounds: time flows on for you. Your past self has the health you had then, and the enemies who wounded you are still fighting it, so those wounds fall on it. Your past self replays exactly what you did, fighting beside you. Do it again and there are three of you. Each rewind adds strain, which cools over time; if your past self is killed, the paradox hurts you. Rewinding in front of townsfolk feeds suspicion.
The world is a real simulation: peoples grow, farm, fight, catch plague, rise and fall. Elders (!) ask for help with what is actually happening around them. Finishing a quest records a deed in the timeline, and the future is re-simulated from that moment:
Weapons, armour and ammunition belong to an age, from Stone Age clubs to Industrial rifles. Smiths sell what their people can make, and elite foes drop theirs. Gear from later ages is stronger, but people notice: wield things two or more ages ahead of them (or fire a gun where guns are unknown) and suspicion rises. They whisper, refuse you quests and beds, and at the worst send witch-hunters. Clothes matter too: dress like another people and prices rise; dress two ages off and people walk away from you, refuse to talk, and pay you less (no one attacks you for it). Smiths' markets sell local clothes. Press U to hide everything out of its time: you blend in, but fight with bare fists, without a ranged weapon or armour, until you press U again. Ammunition only comes from an age that can make it. Sell a far-future item to a smith and their people take it apart and learn from it (a deed in history).
The Chronoscope lists turning points of your timeline (a plague, a capital sacked, a rival's founding). Take one up with its number and travel to its years to stand in it.
Walking a province takes about a month; resting takes a season. You age only while living, not while travelling in time. When a bearer dies, the Chronoscope passes to someone young, and every deed still stands.