Clockwork Revolution: inXile's Steampunk Time-Travel RPG Targets 2027
Change the past, watch the present rewrite itself. The Wasteland studio's first-person RPG has 750,000 words of dialogue and a 2027 window. Here is what is confirmed.
In 1988, a small studio called Interplay made Wasteland, a post-apocalyptic role-playing game that later inspired Fallout. Its producer, Brian Fargo, has spent much of the decades since chasing the same idea: worlds that react to what you do. His latest game takes that further than ever, by letting you change history itself.
Clockwork Revolution, from inXile Entertainment, is a first-person RPG set in a steampunk city where the player can travel back in time and alter past events. It is planned for 2027, and in June 2026 Xbox confirmed it will be an Xbox console exclusive. A Steam page lists a 2027 planned release, so PC players should be able to play it too.
The world: Avalon and Lady Ironwood
The game is set in Avalon, a sprawling steampunk metropolis modelled on Victorian society. Avalon is ruled by Lady Ironwood, who has used time travel to bend the city's past to her will.
The key tool is the Chronometer, a device that lets the player visit earlier versions of Avalon, change events there, and then return to see how the present has changed. A choice made decades in the past might rebuild a district, change who holds power or erase a character entirely.
What is confirmed
- Revealed: at the Xbox Games Showcase on June 12, 2023.
- Developer: inXile Entertainment, with co-development support from Shapeshifter Games, a studio founded by former Volition developers, announced in January 2024.
- Publisher: Xbox Game Studios.
- Leads: Chad Moore is game director, Jason D. Anderson is principal designer, and Brian Fargo is producer.
- Engine: Unreal Engine 5.
- Size: Fargo has said the main story alone will take at least 20 hours, without side content. By August 2025, the team had written 750,000 words of dialogue.
- Gameplay shown: a five-minute gameplay trailer at the Xbox Games Showcase in June 2025.
Why time travel is so hard
Branching stories are expensive. Every meaningful choice means writing and building content that some players will never see. A game in which past choices reshape a whole city multiplies that problem. That is why the 750,000-word figure matters: it is an early sign of how much reactive content inXile is building.
Development started before Wasteland 3 came out in 2020, which means the game has been in the works for most of a decade by its planned release. inXile has been part of Microsoft since 2018, when Xbox bought the studio during its big wave of acquisitions.
The exclusivity decision stands out. Over the past two years, Xbox has brought several of its biggest games to PlayStation, from Indiana Jones and the Great Circle to Forza Horizon. Keeping Clockwork Revolution off rival consoles, at least at launch, suggests Microsoft sees it as a system-seller in its own right, a role inXile has never played before.
What's next
The next milestones are a release date and a fuller look at how the Chronometer works across a whole story. Xbox's 2027 slate is already busy, with Fable due in February, so expect Clockwork Revolution later in the year if the window holds.
In the meantime, Wasteland 3 is the best taste of inXile's current style: choices with real consequences, and a sense of humour that never gets in the way of them.