12 Minutes review – a time loop mystery that can't break free of tedium

Time loop mysteries are enduringly popular – 12 Minutes isn’t even the only game featuring a time loop this year, but it sure is the closest to Groundhog Day, that most famous of time loop tales. It wears developer Luis Antonio’s love for other forms of storytelling on its sleeve in more ways than that – in the opening sequence, you walk across the hall on the carpet from The Shining, while the set-up feels like a one-room play or, to acknowledge Antonio’s love for Hitchcock, like the 1948 “limited-setting” thriller Rope, which takes place entirely in one apartment, just like the game.

12 Minutes reviewPublisher: Annapurna InteractiveDeveloper: Luis AntonioPlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Out August 19th on PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series S/X

It all starts when your character, a nameless man (James McAvoy), comes home from work to the miniscule apartment he shares with his wife (Daisy Ridley). The two have just settled down for a quiet evening together, when a policeman (Wilem Dafoe) burst into their home, and accuses the wife of murder. If you try to interrupt, he knocks you out.

That’s how you discover you’re in a time loop – from the moment of your mysterious resurrection, you’re unable to leave the apartment, and guaranteed to become the perpetual punching bag for someone who’s having a very bad day. If you try to fight back, he kills you. If he doesn’t get what he wants in the time frame he wants it in, he also kills you. So you begin hunting down what he’s looking for – a valuable piece of evidence.

TWELVE MINUTES | Launch Trailer Watch on YouTube

I think the enjoyment of time loop movies as a passive film viewer comes from thinking that really, if it were you, you’d be much better at all this. 12 Minutes is your chance to put that to the test, and boy oh boy, I am just as bad as any poor schmuck who ever got stuck in a time loop. This is essentially a point and click adventure from a top down perspective. You move your character by clicking the spot you want him to go to, you make a full cup of water disappear into his trouser pockets, you have an inventory to take things out of.