If you’ve ever spent 20 minutes running circles around a spawn point waiting for a rare echo to pop, or tried to trigger a time-locked side quest that only activates after dark, you already know how frustrating it can be to wait for the in-game clock to tick forward. Learning how to adjust time in Wuthering Waves isn’t just a neat quality-of-life trick—it’s a core skill that saves you hours of grinding and lets you access content you’d otherwise miss out on. I’ve put this guide together after testing every method across PC, mobile, and console versions of the game, so you don’t have to waste time hunting through menus or guessing hidden controls.
How to Adjust Time in Wuthering Waves: Step-by-Step Basic Process
First, a quick note: you won’t have access to time adjustment when you first boot up the game. The feature unlocks automatically once you finish the opening prologue quest line, right after you meet your first rover companion and gain access to the open world of Jinzhou. If you don’t see the clock icon in your menus yet, just 20 more minutes of main quest progress will get you there.
Once unlocked, the basic process works the same across every platform:
- Open your main map screen by pressing the M key on PC, tapping the map icon on mobile, or pressing the options button then selecting map on console.
- Look for the small clock icon in the top right corner of the map screen, right next to your region filter and fast travel search bar.
- Click or tap the clock icon, then drag the sun/moon slider around the dial to select the exact time you want to jump to. You can pick any time down to 15-minute increments, so you don’t have to guess rough time windows.
- Confirm your selection, and the game will fade to black for 2-3 seconds before loading your chosen time of day.
This process works 99% of the time, but there are a few edge cases where it won’t work, which we’ll cover later in this guide. I recommend testing this first at a safe, open fast travel point so you can get used to how the time shift affects lighting and spawns around you before you use it mid-quest.
Top Reasons to Adjust Your In-Game Time
You might be wondering why you’d even bother adjusting time outside of specific quest requirements, but the feature has way more uses than most players realize when they first start playing.
Time-gated quests and events are the most common use case. A lot of side quests, especially character story quests, only activate at specific times. For example, the popular "Lost Lantern" side quest in the southern fishing village only pops up between 8PM and 2AM in-game time. If you show up at noon, you won’t see the quest giver at all, and you might think the quest is bugged. All of these little perks make learning how to adjust time in Wuthering Waves well worth the 30 seconds it takes to memorize the process.
Rare echo and creature spawns are another huge reason to use the feature. Almost half of the rare combat echoes and passive creatures only spawn at night or during dawn/dusk. The coveted Shadow Fox echo, for example, only appears between 11PM and 4AM in the misty mountain areas, so adjusting time saves you from waiting hours for it to spawn.
Better screenshot opportunities are an underrated perk too. Wuthering Waves has some of the most gorgeous lighting in any gacha game right now, and golden hour (one hour after sunrise and one hour before sunset) gives you the perfect soft light for character screenshots or landscape shots. I use this trick all the time when I’m taking photos of my new pulls for my social media feeds. You can also adjust time to avoid harsh midday glare that washes out character details.
Common Issues When Adjusting Time (And How to Fix Them)
The time adjustment feature is pretty straightforward, but there are a few common snags that trip up new and experienced players alike. I’ve run into almost all of these myself, so I can tell you exactly how to fix them fast.
You can’t adjust time during active quests or combat 9 times out of 10 when the clock icon is greyed out. If you’re in the middle of a main quest step, a combat encounter, or you’re standing too close to an enemy spawn point, the feature locks automatically to prevent quest breaks. Just step away from the fight, or finish the current quest objective, and the option will unlock again. I ran into this last week when I was trying to adjust time mid-boss fight to get better lighting for a clip, and it wouldn’t work until I left the boss arena entirely.
Time adjustment doesn’t reset daily quests or rewards, no matter how many times you jump ahead 24 hours. A lot of new players assume they can skip ahead to claim daily rewards again, but that’s not how it works. Daily resets are tied to real-world server time, not in-game time, so adjusting your in-game clock won’t let you farm extra rewards or refresh shop stock. That’s an important thing to note so you don’t waste your time trying to exploit the system.
Some spawns won’t reset immediately after time adjustment if you’re standing in the same spot. If you’re trying to spawn a rare echo, you might need to fast travel to a different region and come back after adjusting time for the spawn to trigger. The game only reloads spawn points when you load into a new area, so just shifting time while standing in the same spot won’t always make the creature appear. I learned this the hard way when I waited 10 minutes for a Shadow Fox to spawn after adjusting time, before I realized I just needed to fast travel away and back to trigger it.
Advanced Time Adjustment Tricks for Experienced Players
Once you’ve got the basic process down, there are a few lesser-known tricks you can use to get even more value out of the time adjustment feature. These are all tricks I’ve picked up after 200+ hours of playtime, and they’ve saved me dozens of hours of grinding.
Use time adjustment to skip night-time enemy swarms if you’re exploring a high-level region underleveled. If you’re exploring the northern tundra for example, night-time spawns are 10 levels higher than daytime spawns, and they’ll ambush you every few minutes. Just adjust time to 8AM and those high-level enemies will despawn immediately, letting you explore safely without wasting healing items or running back to fast travel points every five minutes.
If you’re trying to complete a collection of time-specific lore items, you can set your time to 15-minute increments and jump through each window to make sure you don’t miss any spawns. For example, the hidden weather stone lore collectibles only appear for 15 minutes at dawn and dusk, so adjusting time in 15-minute chunks lets you hit every window without waiting around for the clock to move in real time.
Another trick for mobile players: adjust time to the exact window you need for your farming run before you head out, so you don’t have to leave the game running in the background waiting for the right time. That’s a small thing, but it can save you 20% or more of your battery life during long play sessions. Remember that time adjustment doesn’t cost any in-game currency or items, so you can use it as often as you want without worrying about wasting resources. There’s no cooldown either, so you can jump between day and night as much as you need for your quests or farming runs.
At the end of the day, mastering how to adjust time in Wuthering Waves is one of those small skills that makes your entire playthrough feel way smoother and less frustrating. You don’t have to waste real time waiting for the in-game clock to move, and you can access all of the hidden content that Kuro Game tucked into different time windows without jumping through hoops. If you’re still running into issues with the feature, try restarting your game first, as occasional menu glitches can make the clock icon disappear temporarily. Feel free to drop a comment below if you find any other fun uses for time adjustment that we didn’t cover here.