Coming off of the success of non-linear puzzle/detective games like Return of the Obra Dinn and Outer WIlds, developer Cosmonaut tries their hand at a modern-day web of deductions with their game Eternal Threads. Set inside a British house shared by six people, you are a time traveler named Forty-Three tasked with saving these six from a house fire that will take all of their lives. To do this, you must manipulate a variety of major and minor choices in their lives over the previous week, creating subtle rifts in spacetime and influencing them all to save themselves by the time the fire arrives. It's an excellent premise that is immediately interesting and slightly unnerving. The entire 8 hours spent in Eternal Threads keeps you in its contained domestic setting, slowly unlocking doors and secrets as you learn more about the house and the people inside of it. Right at the top of the game, you are given a device that can visit many events that lead to the current timeline, which you can tackle in any order. I chose to see events mostly in chronological order, but there's nothing stopping you from jumping ahead to see the fates of the residents change based on your actions. Once you choose an event you want to watch, you must find its location in the house and then watch the scene play out. In some events, there is a binary decision which can alter the timeline, like choosing to drink or not, telling someone a secret, or choosing how to spend a morning. One of the most fascinating elements of the game is trying to deduce how certain choices will lead to a better or worse outcome and how far do the choices allow for new opportunities. Besides the choices, there isn't much interaction with the characters or the world. Your character is viewing everything through holograms, so you aren't directly influencing the characters, just the choices they make. Ostensibly, the game is just watching over a hundred scenes and picking which decisions carry you forward. This lack of tactile interaction would be fine if not for Eternal Thread's awful UI. The menu you use to select events is laid out so you can easily see the events on the timeline in order, with potential events found on alternate paths blocked out. You can easily change decisions without having to re-view the scene, but there is no menu or tracker of what decisions you've made, so skimming through the massive timeline is cumbersome. It's all too easy to forget which decisions you've left active also, especially if you return to the game for another session. Thankfully, the writing overall is pretty good with some standout moments between characters. Vocal performances are hit and miss, but generally the scenes aren't boring if there are multiple people in them. All of this concludes in an ending that is wildly unsatisfactory, even when achieving the best possible outcome. The game has some truly incredible revelations hanging on its outer edges, but never tries to find a payoff or a valid reason for it all to be there, and instead opts for a cliffhanger that feels out of place and unearned for the stakes previously presented. I was really enjoying the last few hours of Eternal Threads and the actual path to the end completely deflated all desire to 100% complete every scene and collectible. I wish I had more positives to give this game, For 7 of the 8 hours played, I was having a fantastic time, but unfortunately, this genre rides upon how it puts the pieces together, but currently those pieces are from two completely different jigsaw puzzles. I cannot fully recommend Eternal Threads, but lightly suggest trying it out if you like general drama or if you don't mind following through to the end.