Lifeline is a narrative adventure where you interact with an astronaut, Taylor via text messages. You help him return home after crashing his aircraft on a foreign planet.

The main interactions are through choosing responses to Taylor's questions, that sometimes require you to search the internet for the answer. When Taylor has a job to do he will do it in real time meaning you can only talk to him when he is done, which can be a number of hours without hearing from him. This makes it feel like he is a real person and creates a unique way of playing as you may not have that much to do one day compared to another.

Making a wrong decision can cause Taylor to die, when this happens you can rewind the story back and make a better decision. Once you've completed the story you unlock Fast Mode which means there are no breaks to wait for Taylor. When replaying the game the end outcome and story narrative will be different, with various different outcomes.

Lifeline is a part of a series with 7 prequels with some extending Taylor's story and some with new adventures :

• Lifeline (2015)
• Lifeline 2: Bloodline (2015)
• Lifeline: Silent Night (2015)
• Lifeline: Whiteout (2016)
• Lifeline: Crisis Line (2016)
• Lifeline: Flatline (2016)
• Lifeline: Halfway To Infinity (2016)
• Lifeline: Whiteout 2 (2017, partial release)
• Lifeline: Beside You in Time (2022)