Groundhog Day Scenario (Concept)

Groundhog Day Scenario

CONCEPT

More commonly known as a "time loop", these games feature events that force the players through the cycle of repeating one (or a few) day(s). This is often presented as the result of time travel or other strange phenomena.

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Overview

A "Groundhog Day Scenario" refers to a narrative that features time moving in a loop, where at some point, the protagonist is thrust back in time to relive certain events. This loop could result in multiple visits to the same period of time before it's broken and time is allowed to move forward. The concept's name refers to the 1993 film Groundhog Day, in which an ill-tempered man is forced to relive the same day over and over countless times.

In Video Games

The following is a partial list of games that feature time loops in notable ways.

BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger

As the story of BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger progresses, it is eventually revealed that the world has been trapped in a perpetual time loop spanning one hundred years due to the merging of charactersRagna and V-13. The loop is finally broken when Ragna manages to prevent V-13 from merging with him again.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

In The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, the land of Termina (Location) will be destroyed in three days, when the moon will come crashing down on the land. Link (Character) is forced to repeat a three-day cycle in order to accomplish everything he must do in order to prevent this fate.

GrimGrimoire

GrimGrimoire (Game) is set in a prestigious magic school where the protagonist, a new student named Lillet Blan (Character), discovers on her fifth day at the campus that everyone has been killed. Before she is killed as well, she awakens in the past, on the first day of school.

Flower, Sun, and Rain

In Flower, Sun, and Rain, the main character Sumio Mondo is tasked with disarming a bomb that threatens to blow up an airplane. Distracted from the task by a variety of other issues, Sumio fails to prevent the bomb from going off, but when he awakens the next morning, he finds himself forced to repeat the same day.

Singularity

The game Singularity (Game) takes place on an island where time constantly shifts. The protagonist occasionally encounters characters who are stuck in an endless time loop.

Astro Boy: Omega Factor

Upon finishing Astro Boy: Omega Factor for the first time, all the robots in the world are destroyed. Players must go through the entire game again and prevent this from happening to see the real ending.

Shadow of Memories

Shadow of Memories begins with the protagonist's death. He goes back in time to prevent it from happening.

Steins;Gate

In the visual novel Steins;Gate, the protagonist Rintarō Okabe (Character) keeps repeating the same several weeks over and over again in an attempt to save someone's life.

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

Though the main narrative of Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII does not involve a time loop, starting a New Game Plus (Concept) after completing the game, or accessing the Crystal of Atonement before completion, will result in the game restarting from the first day. When Lightning (Character) first talks to Hope upon starting anew, she experiences a sense of deja vu, and Hope speculates that it's possible they've relived these events countless times.

Outer Wilds

The player character in Outer Wilds (Game) incrementally explores multiple planets of the solar system before the sun goes supernova and kills them every 22 minutes. Different phenomena occur on the planets depending on where in the cycle the player is.

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