It was created by the senior designer of Titanfall 2, Jake Keating, who was inspired to implement the time travel mechanic in part after watching the History Channel series Life After People.

It was the most labor and time-intensive level in the game, going through several revisions in order to make it play well and not confuse players, while still trying to avoid guiding them too much.

At the beginning of the level, Jack Cooper and BT-7274, the protagonists of the game, arrive at ARES Division, an abandoned Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation (IMC) research facility, planning to reconvene with Major Eli Anderson, a Frontier Militia pilot.

Jack retrieves a handheld device from Anderson's body that gives him the ability to transport between the two time periods, fighting the IMC military in the past, and malfunctioning robots and wildlife in the present.

By exploring the facility and watching Anderson's memory logs, Jack finds out that the time skips he is experiencing are the result of "The Fold", a prototype doomsday weapon that produces distortions in spacetime to destroy planets.

[1] The idea for a time travel mechanic and level came from Keating leaving Infinity Ward after a dispute with Activision, where he would then be employed by Respawn Entertainment.

[1] He was inspired to implement the idea of shifting times by the History Channel series, Life After People, which depicts what the world would look like if humanity suddenly disappeared and would swap between the present and future.

He was drawn to this contrast, and pitched the idea of players entering a facility after a space-time accident, using a time travel device to save a scientist.

When designing the map, Keating and other staff put the past and present areas stacked on top of one another, and the process caused some difficulties, with playtesting finding players warped out of bounds.

[1] Initially, players were meant to go alone to the location of "Effect and Cause," with BT having sacrificed his life to save Jack, but this was scrapped after the story began developing further.

"[6] PCGamesN writer Matt Purslow felt that "Effect and Cause" is what demonstrated Respawn's "understanding of what makes their game unique.

"[14] Fellow PC Gamer writer Chris Thurston called it a "standout" level, saying that it would not be "out of place" in the first-person shooter series Half-Life.