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Time Stop

An ability that halts time for everything around the user, or within an area, for a brief span, so that only the user (in some games also its own units) moves and acts while everything frozen cannot react

Also known as: Time Stopper, magical clock, Power of Haste, Mega-Freeze, Bend Time, Chronosphere, Chaos Control

Definition

A time stop halts time around the user or within an area for a brief span, while the user, sometimes with its own units, goes on acting. A stun stops chosen targets while the world runs on, so single-target freezes such as Prince of Persia’s Power of Restraint are stuns. A slow reduces a target’s rate, and under a haste others still act; under a time stop they take no actions. Max Payne’s bullet time (2001), which “will slow the action around him”, is a world slow. The time loops mechanic resets the world; a time stop pauses it and resets nothing.

Behaviour

The frozen region is an area around the user (Greyhawk’s 3-inch cube, Chronosphere’s radius of 500), the current screen (the Zelda clock, the Time Stopper), or everything but the user (5th edition, the Mega-Freeze). Real-time forms last seconds, tabletop forms turns. The texts split on harming the frozen: Greyhawk and the Players Handbook are silent, Prince of Persia lets the Prince finish “each one off in turn”, the 3.5 SRD (2003) makes frozen creatures “invulnerable to your attacks and spells”, and 5th edition ends the spell on contact.

Variations

  • Turn-based run of turns (Dungeons & Dragons, 5th edition; Magic: The Gathering): the caster takes 1d4 + 1 turns in a row; Time Walk’s extra turn is the card-game analogue.
  • Indiscriminate field (Players Handbook, Dota 2): the stop applies to a place, not a side; Chronosphere freezes allies, and leaving the sphere ends the 1978 spell.
  • Preparation window (3.5 SRD, 5th edition): the no-harm or ends-on-contact rule leaves the stop for repositioning.
  • Screen-wide stop (The Legend of Zelda, Mega Man 2): every enemy on the current screen stops.
  • Graded slow to stop (Dishonored, Prince of Persia): Bend Time slows the world at level one and stops it at level two; Prince of Persia also has a Power of Delay slow.
  • Side-wide stop (Final Fantasy, 1987): STOP, “Time is stopped for the enemies”, applies to all enemies and sits on the line with a mass stun.

Gating

Tabletop forms make Time Stop a 9th-level spell from Greyhawk to 5th edition and add limits in the text: a hidden duration in 1975, the area boundary in 1978, the no-harm rule in 2003, the end on contact in 2014. Early console games spend an item (the clock) or a whole weapon bar (the Time Stopper). Prince of Persia (2003) spends every Power Tank, Dota 2 (2013) combines mana with a cooldown above two minutes, and Sonic X Shadow Generations (2024) fills a gauge through play.

History and provenance

Greyhawk (1975) lists Time Stop among its “all new” 9th-level magic-user spells; Men & Magic (1974) has none. The Players Handbook (1978) restates it with frozen creatures “literally between ticks of the time clock”. H. G. Wells’s “The New Accelerator” (1901) is often named as a fictional antecedent. The Legend of Zelda (1986) made the stop a pickup and Mega Man 2 (1988) a boss weapon. The 3.5 SRD explains the spell as “you speed up so greatly that all other creatures seem frozen”, and Prince of Persia calls its stop the Power of Haste. Fifth edition (2014) recast it as turns in a row.

Notable examples

Notable examples, in chronological order. Notes describe how the ability behaves in each game; gating is what limits its use there; the latest reference is a widely played game from 2020 or later.
GameYearMediumGatingHow the ability behaves
Dungeons & Dragons Supplement I: Greyhawk
Gary Gygax and Robert Kuntz (TSR)		1975Tabletop RPGSpell slotsA 9th-level magic-user spell "freezes" time in a 3-inch cubic area around the caster, who "may move freely"; creatures in the area, or entering it, are "stopped in time with regard to the magic-user". It lasts 2-5 melee turns, the caster is not told how long, and the text gives no saving throw.
The Legend of Zelda
Nintendo (Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka)		1986VideoConsumableThe magical clock is a pickup used at once: "The enemy stops moving when Link has this." The manual adds that it works only for the screen Link is on, so every enemy on that screen stops and the next screen is unaffected.
Mega Man 2
Capcom		1988VideoChargesThe Time Stopper, taken from Flash Man, "will freeze all enemies for a little while". Once used it runs until its own weapon energy bar is "completely drained" and "cannot be turned off early", so one full bar is one stop; weapon energy pellets refill the bar.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Ubisoft Montreal (Ubisoft)		2003VideoManaThe Power of Haste, or Mega-Freeze, "stops time for the entire world". It needs a full complement of Power Tanks and consumes all of them, with the Time Circle timing the stop; the Prince targets the frozen enemies and finishes "each one off in turn". Power Tanks refill with sand taken from enemies.
Dota 2
Valve		2013VideoMana, CooldownChronosphere, Faceless Void's ultimate, traps all units caught in its sphere, radius 500, for 3.75, 4.25, or 4.75 seconds by level; only Void and units he controls are unaffected, so allies freeze too. It costs 125 to 275 mana on a 155 to 135 second cooldown and reveals invisible enemies (current-patch values).
Dungeons & Dragons, 5th edition
Wizards of the Coast		2014Tabletop RPGSpell slotsA 9th-level self spell, verbal only, cast as one action. "No time passes for other creatures, while you take 1d4 + 1 turns in a row." It ends if an action or effect of the caster's affects another creature or an object someone else wears or carries, or if the caster moves more than 1,000 feet from the casting point.
Sonic X Shadow Generations Latest
Sonic Team (SEGA)		2024VideoUltimate chargeShadow's Chaos Control stops time for about five seconds once a gauge is full. A June 2024 preview describes the gauge filling from rings; an October 2024 review describes it filling from defeating a set number of enemies or finding a power-up, and notes set pieces that remove the ability.

Provenance

Earliest documented use: Dungeons & Dragons Supplement I: Greyhawk (1975), tabletop rpg. Confidence: high. Greyhawk, whose foreword is dated 1 February 1975, lists Time Stop in its 9th-level magic-user table, marked "all new", and describes an area freeze around the caster with a hidden duration of 2-5 melee turns. Men & Magic (1974) has no Time Stop in its text, and no earlier game instance is cited. Eldritch Wizardry (1976) postdates Greyhawk, and its contents remain unsurveyed. The Players Handbook (1978) restates the spell with fuller rules. The earliest cited video instance is the magical clock of The Legend of Zelda (1986); earlier video forms remain unsurveyed.

Established form: Dungeons & Dragons Supplement I: Greyhawk (1975), tabletop rpg. The earliest documented use also set the form. Confidence: low. The Players Handbook (1978), the 3.5 System Reference Document (2003), and 5th edition (2014) each keep Time Stop as a 9th-level magic-user or wizard spell under which the caster acts while others stay frozen, a documented chain within the Dungeons & Dragons rules. No source ties the video forms, from the Zelda clock to Chronosphere, to the spell, so the lineage beyond the tabletop line is undocumented.

Sources

  1. Gary Gygax and Robert Kuntz (TSR). (1975). Dungeons & Dragons Supplement I: Greyhawk. Rulebook Magic-User spells table, 9th level, p. 20; Time Stop, p. 28; Cube of Force, Miscellaneous Magic. Accessed 2026-10-24. The 1975 Time Stop, an area freeze with a hidden 2-5 turn duration, and its place among the new 9th-level spells.
  2. Gary Gygax (TSR). (1978). Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook. Rulebook Magic-User Spells (9th Level), Time Stop, p. 94. Accessed 2026-10-24. The 3-inch sphere, the per-level duration, frozen creatures between ticks of the time clock, and the end on leaving the area.
  3. Wizards of the Coast. (2003). Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 System Reference Document, Spells T-Z. Rulebook Time Stop. Accessed 2026-10-24. The speed-up explanation and the rule that frozen creatures are invulnerable to the caster's attacks and spells.
  4. Wizards of the Coast. (2016). System Reference Document 5.1. Rulebook Time Stop, p. 187. Accessed 2026-10-24. The 1d4 + 1 turns in a row and the end on affecting another creature or moving more than 1,000 feet away, matching the 2014 text.
  5. Nintendo. (1987). The Legend of Zelda instruction manual (NES). Rulebook Treasure - The Magic and the Mystery, Magical clock. Accessed 2026-10-24. The clock as a screen-wide enemy stop.
  6. Capcom USA. (c. 1989). Mega Man 2 instruction manual (NES). Rulebook Robot weapons (Time Stopper), p. 15; Energy. Accessed 2026-10-24. The Time Stopper's freeze of all enemies and its drain of the weapon's energy to zero.
  7. Ubisoft. (2003). Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time PC manual. Rulebook Powers of the Dagger of Time, pp. 10-11; Power Tanks and Time Circle, p. 13; Power Attacks, Power of Haste (Mega-Freeze), p. 21. Accessed 2026-10-24. The world stop that spends every Power Tank, beside the Power of Delay slow and the Power of Restraint freeze on one enemy.
  8. Arkane Studios. (2012). Dishonored PC Game Manual. Bethesda Softworks. Rulebook Powers: Bend Time; Runes. Accessed 2026-10-24. Bend Time as a world slow at level one and a full stop at level two.
  9. Valve. Faceless Void hero data (Chronosphere). Website Accessed 2026-10-24. Current-patch Chronosphere radius, duration, mana, and cooldown, and that only Void and units he controls are unaffected.
  10. Square. (1990). Final Fantasy instruction manual (NES). Nintendo of America. Rulebook Black Magic, Level 8, STOP, p. 79. Accessed 2026-10-24. STOP on all enemies, "Time is stopped for the enemies".
  11. Remedy Entertainment. (2001). Max Payne manual (PC). Rulebook Bullet Time. Accessed 2026-10-24. The bullet-time neighbour, which slows the action around the player and drains an hourglass meter refilled by kills.
  12. Alana Hagues (Nintendo Life). (2024). Hands On: Sonic X Shadow Generations Is A Love Letter To Sonic Adventure 2. Article Accessed 2026-10-24. The ring-filled gauge and the five-second Chaos Control in the June 2024 preview build.
  13. Zubi Khan (CGMagazine). (2024). Sonic X Shadow Generations (PS5) Review. Article Accessed 2026-10-24. Chaos Control triggered when the gauge fills, from defeating enemies or a power-up, and set pieces that remove it.
  14. Nintendo. (2024). Sonic X Shadow Generations (Nintendo Switch) store page. Website Accessed 2026-10-24. The publisher's description of stopping time with Chaos Control, and the 2024 release by SEGA.
  15. Scryfall card database, Time Walk; Time Stretch. Wiki The extra-turn cards of Magic, the board-card analogue of the turn-based form.

Cite this entry

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West, James, Jr. (2026). "Time Stop." Game Mechanic Compendium, updated 2026-10-27. http://localhost:4321/abilities/time-stop

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