‘Chrono Trigger’ and Coping with Pandemic Trauma through Video Games Coping with the COVID-19 shutdown via a video game, where I have control over the apocalyptic outcome, was what I needed. Chrono Trigger delivered. Chrono Trigger Square 1995 Video games have become a way to both escape and confront the traumatic experience created by the COVID-19 Pandemic. Studies have shown that video games can help players cope with traumatic events. By playing the 1995 video game Chrono Trigger during lockdown, I meditated on life and vied for agency while facing circumstances byond my control. Coping with COVID-19 Isolation On 26 March 2020, I entered lockdown and joined millions of people around the world in social isolation in hopes of stopping the spread of COVID-19. The pandemic and the lockdowns that followed changed many people’s lives. While the pandemic disrupted daily routines across the world; for some, it became a historical demarcation, an apocalypse of sorts. Life would never be the same again.