An invisible time traveller
Walk through prehistoric Earth
Slide back in time to see Earth as it was, then step into the worlds marked on the timeline and walk among dinosaurs.
Today
Holocene · Quaternary period
No world to walk at this time yet. Slide to a marked time to enter one.
Maps drawn from the PALEOMAP PaleoDEMs by C. R. Scotese and N. Wright (CC BY 4.0); early Earth is drawn by hand. Drag the globe to spin it.
Worlds you can walk
Pick a moment in deep time and walk around it in 3D, like a video game with nothing to win. Cross the lava fields of a newborn planet, or walk among dinosaurs and Ice Age giants as they go about their day, right in your browser.
4 billion years ago
Early Earth
Lava fields and smoking volcanoes, under falling meteors and a huge Moon. Nothing is alive yet.
Walk there →
150 million years ago
Late Jurassic
Conifer forests and ferns, with Apatosaurus herds and Stegosaurus.
Walk there →
70 million years ago
Late Cretaceous
Flowering trees and palms, with T. rex, Triceratops and Parasaurolophus.
Walk there →
20,000 years ago
Ice Age
Snowy steppe and pines, with woolly mammoths and saber-toothed cats.
Walk there →
How it works
Slide the timeline under the globe back from today to see the continents drift into place, all the way to 540 million years ago, then one last step to early Earth, 4 billion years ago. At a marked time, press Enter, then Start walking. Walk with W AS D or the arrow keys, look around with the mouse, run with Shift and jump with Space.
Look at an animal and its name appears, with how big it was, what it ate and when it lived. On early Earth, watch the sky: meteors still fall there. Press Esc to pause or travel to another time.
Questions
Is it free?
Yes. There's nothing to buy, no account and nothing to install: it runs in your browser.
Does it work on phones?
Not yet. You walk with the keyboard and look around with the mouse, so it needs a laptop or desktop computer.
Is there anything to win?
No. It's a walk, not a game. There's no score and nothing can hurt you: you're an invisible time traveller.
How accurate is it?
The animals, their sizes and their dates are real, and each era's page says who lived when. The models are simple low-poly ones, the plants are stand-ins for the real prehistoric flora, and early Earth is a best guess: nobody saw it.