Time-travel is one of those enigmatic concepts which has captured the imagination of people for countless centuries. It is also one of those few things which is almost as hard to do right in games as it is in real life. Okay, fine, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but it's still difficult. Flying? Sure. Balancing objects in a way that defies physics? No problem. Phasing through seemingly solid objects? Please. Teleportation? Naturally. Time-travel? Ehh, not so sure.
Those among you with some skill in programming will understand why this is so difficult. Even if you manage to put together a working code, there is still the issue of memory-scraps clogging up everything as a side effect of perpetually saving data and overwriting it with itself.
As such, I'm sure you'll appreciate just how much effort GTA V modder Aex12 has put into the Flashback mod. This mod allows your GTA V character to travel back a limited distance in time. Similar to the mechanic in Prince of Persia or Grid 2, this allows you to correct mistakes with the benefit of hindsight.
The mod will also take your surroundings back in time with you since it was updated. You can also alter the speed at which you're flashing back for a cooler visual effect. The mod is still a work in progress with a few more bugs to iron out and some additional features the author intends to add. Even so, the updates it has received so far already added a number of features such as configurable key-binding.
This isn't the first time GTA V got a mod related to time travel, however the Back to the Future inspired Time Circuits worked on a slightly different principle — at and a different scale.
Would you like to see future GTA games incorporate such a flashback mechanic?
