If you’ve ever stood around waiting for night to fall so you can trigger a hidden side quest, or stared at a midday sky ruining your perfect photo mode shot, you know how frustrating it is to be stuck at the wrong in-game time. A surprising number of new players don’t know how to change time in Wuthering Waves, even after they’ve put 10+ hours into exploring the open world. This guide walks you through every step of unlocking and using the time adjustment feature, plus all the little use cases and fixes for common issues you won’t find in the official tutorial.
What You Need Before You Can Change Time in Wuthering Waves
You won’t have access to time adjustment right when you start the game, and that’s not a bug. The feature locks behind a few early game progression gates to keep new players from getting overwhelmed with quality of life tools before they grasp the core mechanics. I spent 20 minutes scrolling through every menu tab my first week playing, confused why I couldn’t find the time setting, so I’ve laid out the exact prerequisites you need to hit first.
- Complete the first three main story quests to leave the starting coastal cove area
- Unlock your first portable base access point, which becomes available right after you meet your first recruitable Resonator
- Reach Account Level 4, which you’ll hit naturally after completing 4-5 side quests along with the early main story
You’ll get a small pop-up notification the second the time adjustment feature unlocks, so you won’t miss it. If you still don’t see it after hitting all three of these points, try fast traveling to a different open world location and checking your menu again. Sometimes the notification gets buried under other quest updates.
Step-by-Step Process to Change Time in Wuthering Waves
Once you’ve unlocked the feature, adjusting the in-game clock only takes a few clicks, no matter what platform you’re playing on. The process is identical across PC, mobile, and console, so you don’t have to learn separate controls for different devices.
First, open your main menu by pressing Esc on PC, tapping the three-line icon on mobile, or hitting the options button on your controller. Navigate to the World tab on the far right of the top menu bar, right next to the inventory tab. You’ll see a small icon that looks like an overlapping sun and moon, labeled the World Chronometer—that’s the time adjustment tool.
Click or tap the Chronometer icon to pull up the time slider. You can either pick one of the four Dawn, Noon, Dusk, and Night presets for one-click adjustment, or drag the slider to any exact hour and minute you want. Once you’ve selected your desired time, hit the confirm button, and the screen will fade to black for 1-2 seconds while the world loads the new time setting.
There are a few small restrictions you need to keep in mind. You can’t change time if you’re in active combat, so you’ll have to defeat your enemies or run away from the fight first. You also can’t adjust time in instanced areas like dungeons, story quest domains, or boss arenas—you have to be on the main open world map for the feature to work.
Top Reasons to Adjust Your In-Game Time Regularly
Changing time isn’t just useful for fixing bad lighting for photos. It’s one of the most underrated quality of life features in the game that can save you hours of grinding and help you unlock content you’d otherwise miss. I use this feature at least three times every play session, and these are the most common use cases I’ve found.
Unlock time-gated quests and events first, since that’s the reason most players go looking for the time adjustment feature. A huge number of side quests, hidden NPCs, and limited-time world events only trigger at specific times of day. For example, the group of ghost NPCs in the western Jinzhou forest only appear between 11PM and 3AM in-game, and they give you a rare 4-star weapon ascension material if you complete their short quest line.
Farm time-specific ascension materials faster is another big one. A lot of Resonator ascension items, cooking ingredients, and wildlife drops only spawn at certain times. Glow moss, which you need to ascend most 4-star support Resonators, only blooms between dusk and dawn, and night-only fish spawns give you access to exclusive cooking recipes that boost your party’s attack for 30 minutes. I usually switch to night before I start any farming run, and it cuts my grind time almost in half.
You can also use time adjustment to avoid tough overworld enemies if you’re underleveled. A lot of the high-level elite enemy patrols only wander the map during noon, so if you’re trying to explore a high level area before your party is strong enough, you can skip to night to avoid most of these fights. It’s not cheating, it’s just smart exploration, especially if you’re trying to unlock a fast travel point in a higher level zone early.
Common Issues When Changing Time (And How to Fix Them)
The time adjustment feature is pretty straightforward, but there are a few common glitches and confusions that pop up for new players. I’ve run into almost all of these myself, so these fixes are all tested and work for every platform.
The most common issue is the World Chronometer option being greyed out when you try to click it. 9 times out of 10, this is because you’re either in active combat, in an instanced area, or you have an active story quest that locks the in-game time. Just finish the current quest objective, leave the instance, or run away from combat, and the option will unlock immediately. If it’s still greyed out, try fast traveling to a different open world spot to refresh your game state.
Another common problem is that changing time doesn’t spawn the time-gated NPC or material you’re looking for. The game doesn’t refresh spawns if you’re standing right on top of the spawn point, so you just need to walk or fast travel a few hundred meters away from the area, then come back. The spawns will update to match the new time as soon as you’re far enough away to trigger a load.
Wondering why the weather doesn’t change when you adjust time? That’s not a bug, it’s intentional. Time and weather are separate mechanics in Wuthering Waves, so adjusting the clock won’t make rain stop or start. You’ll need to use a weather adjustment consumable if you want to change the weather, which you can unlock from the general store once you hit Account Level 6.
A lot of players also ask if their time setting resets when they log out or fast travel. It doesn’t! The time you set stays exactly the same until you adjust it again, even if you close the game completely for a few days. That means you can set it to night before you log off, and you’ll jump right back into nighttime when you start playing again, no extra steps needed.
Once you know how to change time in Wuthering Waves, you’ll wonder how you ever played the game without it. It cuts down on grinding time, unlocks dozens of hidden quests and items, and lets you get the exact lighting you want for all your photo mode shots. Don’t forget to test out different times as you explore new areas—you never know what hidden content you’ll find when you switch up the in-game clock. I still find new time-gated NPCs and items every time I play, even after 50+ hours of exploring the map.