History Main / TimedMission

** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'', the entire game is a timed mission… but you have the ability to [[GroundhogDayLoop reset the clock]], and time pauses while you’re in certain areas.

* There are some stages in ''VideoGame/TheBattleCats'' that have a huge swarm of DemonicSpiders hiding in the base that only come out if you don’t destroy the base fast enough with the time limit varying from stage to stage from 15 minutes down to even 45 seconds.

* Played with in ''VideoGame/TheStanleyParable''’s Countdown Ending- there is no way to stop the countdown or escape the room, it’s all an UnwinnableJokeGame.

* ''[[ExaggeratedTrope Every]]'' battle in ''VideoGame/FugaMelodiesOfSteel2'' can potentially become this depending on your playstyle. If the Exo-Taranis sustains enough damage in combat, then the [[AIIsACrapshoot AI Hax]] will auto-load the [[DesperationAttack Soul]] [[PoweredByAForsakenChild Cannon]] as a defense mechanism. From there, a counter will appear on the timeline that counts down by 1 with every turn passed. Failure to end a battle before the timer hits 0 will result in the Soul Cannon automatically firing and the death of one of your crewmates.

* The scenarios in ''VideoGame/{{Wolf}}'' are all timed, with limits ranging from twelve hours to a few days on the InUniverseGameClock. Sometimes, the limit is directly tied to your objective -- e.g., find water within twelve hours, because that's when you die of dehydration. Other times, the limit is slightly more arbitrary, such as defeating your pack's alpha within two days -- breeding season is coming up, and taking any longer means you'll have to wait (and survive) ''a full year'' before you get your chance at fathering the next generation.

* ''VideoGame/{{HQ}}'' gives the player 10 seconds to answer each question, both to keep the live game moving along and to prevent players from cheating by Googling the answer.
** And then there's the bonus level ''3-Second Hero''.

* ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' has its share of Timed Missions -- however, to be fair, it usually places them in enclosed zones or interior spaces to limit how much running about the hero or heroes have to do. It gets aggravating, though, when completing a mission immediately triggers a timed mission without the player being warned (even more annoying when the timed follow-up mission involves defeating a foe that cannot be defeated without a large team). Fortunately, the Devs have been removing or modifying these in ''City of Heroes'' and such mission combos are almost non-existent in ''City of Villains''. In any case, the timer is usually two or three times the length needed (provided you start straight away).

* Every single Mission in ''VideoGame/EVEOnline'' is this. They even have 2 separate timers. First, after a certain amount of time, you just lose a bit of extra payment, which isn't that bad. Then, 1 week after accepting the mission, it expires and you can get a new one.
** Expeditions also qualify, in that you only get 24 hours to get to the Deadspace site where the Expedition takes place.

*** Some bosses make the timer an ExactTimeToFailure; if you fail to make the timer, [[OneHitKO the boss kills you outright]].
*** Other bosses use a "soft enrage timer"; instead of a single timer which [[TurnsRed jacks up the boss in a huge leap]], the soft enrage is a repeating short timer which increases the boss's power a little bit each time, until the boss grows too powerful for the group to handle. This shifts the urgency from the DPS to the Tanks and Healers, as a hard timer requires the DPS to burn the boss before the enrage, but with a soft enrage, the time the DPS has to kill the boss is dependent on how good the Tanks can soak the damage, and how good the Healers can recover it.

* Before ''Safe Cracker'', there was Creator/{{Gottlieb}}'s ''Pinball/JamesBond007'', which gave the player 50 seconds to play. Players had to make key shots to add more time; unfortunately, novices were frustrated by the mechanic, and pros could easily milk the game for ridiculously long sessions.

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaPhantomHourglass'' takes another spin on the concept, with the titular hourglass measuring how long you can stay in the central dungeon before it begins to drain your life. Getting hit by most enemies drains some of your time, but there are also opportunities to get some bonus time. In addition, there are safe zones where the timer stops and you're safe from enemies.

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'': After shooting the volcano's mouth at the top of Fire Mountain with an Ice Arrow, Link has five minutes to get inside and find the Power Bracelet before the island's heat rises again; luckily, once he gets the item, the exterior of the island remains warm for the rest of the game. This is repeated with the Ice Ring Isle: He shoots at the mouth of the dragon-shaped cave entrance with a Fire Arrow and has five minutes to enter and get the Iron Boots before the whole island freeze over again; when said item is collected, the island remains safe for good.

*** The penultimate boss fight is a LoadBearingBoss; defeating him will cause the castle to begin collapsing, with only three few minutes for you to escape.

* Nearly every single game in the ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'' franchise has a self destruct sequence where you have to escape before the timer hits zero. So much so that ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' actually makes fun of it with Leon, [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil2 who's dealt with such things before]], not being even remotely phased by the idea of having to escape a self destruct system. Poor Ashley on the other hand...
--> '''Leon (Calmly):''' We have to get off this island now. It's gonna blow any minute.
--> '''Ashley (Panicked):''' IT'S GONNA '''WHAT?!'''

* Likewise the 1985 Bally Midway pin ''Beat the Clock'' is based around this concept. Time can be added by hitting targets, and the timer can be stopped by hitting the red S-T-O-P standups near the top of the playfield (though it will be restarted if one of two rollovers is triggered).

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'':

Level timers originated in UsefulNotes/{{arcade game}}s which needed some kind of mechanic to discourage players from hogging the machine without putting in more coins, and spread to many NintendoHard console and computer games that aimed to provide arcade-style gameplay. In a few cases, having the timer run out is the ''only'' way to get a GameOver, with all the other obstacles in the game merely serving to make the player waste valuable time. Many older arcade racing games had stricter time limits where unless you were moderately good, you were destined to run out of time; newer games have bigger time limits that aren't much of a threat unless you're pathetically slow or stop playing. In a similar vein, this is why fighting games have the ubiquitous 99-second timer. It was an arcade mechanic that carried over to the home consoles despite serving no purpose there (at least until the rise of online play), and you'll notice that wrestling games lack any kind of timer despite falling under the same genre; they ''originated'' on home consoles (MMA and boxing games have timers because the matches are timed in real life).

Level timers originated in UsefulNotes/{{arcade game}}s which needed some kind of mechanic to discourage players from hogging the machine without putting in more coins, and spread to many NintendoHard console and computer games that aimed to provide arcade-style gameplay. In a few cases, having the timer run out is the ''only'' way to get a GameOver, with all the other obstacles in the game merely serving to make the player waste valuable time. Many older arcade racing games had stricter time limits where unless you were moderately good, you were destined to run out of time; newer games have bigger time limits that aren't much of a threat unless you're pathetically slow or stop playing. In a similar vein, this is why fighting games have the ubiquitous 99-second timer. It was an arcade mechanic that carried over to the home consoles despite serving no purpose there (at least until the rise of online play), and you'll notice that wrestling lack any kind of timer despite falling under the same genre; they ''originated'' on home consoles (MMA and boxing games have timers because the sports are timed in real life).

Level timers originated in UsefulNotes/{{arcade game}}s which needed some kind of mechanic to discourage players from hogging the machine without putting in more coins, and spread to many NintendoHard console and computer games that aimed to provide arcade-style gameplay. In a few cases, having the timer run out is the ''only'' way to get a GameOver, with all the other obstacles in the game merely serving to make the player waste valuable time. Many older arcade racing games had stricter time limits where unless you were moderately good, you were destined to run out of time; newer games have bigger time limits that aren't much of a threat unless you're pathetically slow or stop playing. In a similar vein, this is why fighting games have the ubiquitous 99-second timer. It was an arcade mechanic that carried over to the home consoles despite serving no purpose there (at least until the rise of online play), and you'll notice that wrestling lack any kind of timer despite falling under the same genre; they ''originated'' on home consoles (MMA and boxing games are timed, but that's because the actual sports have timed rounds).

Level timers originated in UsefulNotes/{{arcade game}}s which needed some kind of mechanic to discourage players from hogging the machine without putting in more coins, and spread to many NintendoHard console and computer games that aimed to provide arcade-style gameplay. In a few cases, having the timer run out is the ''only'' way to get a GameOver, with all the other obstacles in the game merely serving to make the player waste valuable time. Many older arcade racing games had stricter time limits where unless you were moderately good, you were destined to run out of time; newer games have bigger time limits that aren't much of a threat unless you're pathetically slow or stop playing. In a similar vein, this is why fighting games have the ubiquitous 99-second timer. It was an arcade mechanic that carried over to the home consoles despite serving no purpose there (until the rise of online play, that is), and you'll notice that wrestling, boxing, and MMA games lack any kind of timer despite falling under the same genre; they ''originated'' on home consoles.

** In ''Pac-Man Championship Edition'', each stage gives you 5 or 10 minutes to score as many points as you can.

* In [[VideoGame/JetSetRadio Jet Grind Radio]], every level is timed.

* ''GoldRush!'' has several time limits, but none are actually game-ending. After the game begins, you have 15 minutes until the announcement of gold being discovered in California, at which point most of your travel options are taken away and things cost dramatically more, while the value of your house (selling it is your main source of income) drops like a rock. On the Cape Horn route, if you don't figure out a way to get an alternate source of food in time, you'll be too weak to do anything and die soon after. On the Overland route, on several screens, you have to figure out how to overcome the obstacles you're presented with before they do you in. And finally, when you make it to California, one task requires you to gain entrance to a hotel room that doesn't exist by getting access to someone else's room. If you spend too much time figuring out the secret passage after tricking him out of the room, he'll come back, assume you're a thief, and send you to the gallows for a game over.

** This is taken a bit further in Streets of Rage 3, where one stage features a countdown which, when it reaches zero, releases poison gas into a building. Failure to save the General/Chief in time results in the player being taken down the bad ending path. Also, on the good ending path, you have to destroy [[spoiler:Robot Y]] before bombs scattered throughout town detonate. [[spoiler:[[SubvertedTrope They detonate whether or not you beat him in time.]]]]

*** There's also an issue in the Remake as of version 5.2 where you don't get time refills at the end of the Streets of Rage 2 Stage 7 elevator that were in the original game. This means that you have to get through the last 3 waves, featuring several difficult enemies such as kickboxers, as well as the difficult boss fight, all within 4 minutes. Assuming you don't die beforehand from the sheer damage, which refills the timer.

* The last Siberia level in ''SoldierOfFortune'' has a missile launch countdown that Mullins must stop.

* The final mission in ''Videogame/TheWorldIsNotEnough'' involves escaping a sinking submarine. Ironically, it's not because of the water rising, but because a nuclear meltdown is about to take place. There's also the mission where Bond must defuse a bomb on which the timer gets shorter the higher the difficulty you are playing on, all the while saving every hostage along the way (which ''also'' increase in number the higher the difficulty).

** ''VideoGame/MetroidDread'' has the traditional post-{{FinalBoss}} escape sequence with three minutes to run back through the game's last area [[spoiler:with your EleventhHourSuperpower Metroid Suit and Hyper Beam]] to make it back to your ship.

* All the JBA Headquarters missions in ''[[VideoGame/SplinterCell Splinter Cell: Double Agent]]'' revolve around doing some task for the terrorists within a time limit as well as squeezing in any NSA tasks you can manage. You don't get a GameOver if time runs out, but once it does your JBA trust meter declines steadily until you get back to where you're expected to be.

* The ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' series is absolutely rife with these, with strictness ranging from OverlyGenerousTimeLimit to ThatOneLevel-inducing ("[[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIII Expresso-2-Go!]]", "[[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas Supply Lines]]") and reasons range from perfectly justified (Having to assassinate a target before they escape, having to rescue someone who is critically injured, escaping a CollapsingLair) to completely asinine ("[[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoViceCity Shakedown]]", where the protagonist arbitrarily declares "I'll be back in 5 minutes"). It also leads to FridgeLogic in relation to the InUniverseGameClock - if one minute equals one in-game hour, did that CollapsingLair take seven minutes to burn down or seven hours? The series itself isn't particularly consistent - what the clock corresponds to seems to depend on the mission. %%if anyone coumeld come up with good examples of generous mission time limits, that'd be appreciated

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'' has a mission in the ''Cindered Shadows'' DLC where your entire party has to navigate a dungeon within 10 turns. It is the only mission in the DLC that not only doesn't allow any of your units to fall in combat or else you immediately suffer a game over, but you basiclaly have to rush past a majority of the enemies and pick your battles carefully. Failure to do so has the escape route lock down, trapping the characters and failing the mission.

* ''[[ExaggeratedTrope Every]]'' battle in ''VideoGame/FugaMelodiesOfSteel2'' can potentially become this depending on your playstyle. If the Exo-Taranis sustains enough damage in combat, then the AI Hax will auto-load the [[DesperationAttack Soul]] [[PoweredByAForsakenChild Cannon]] as a defense mechanism. From there, a counter will appear on the timeline that counts down by 1 with every turn passed. Failure to end a battle before the timer hits 0 will result in the Soul Cannon automatically firing and the death of one of your crewmates.