The answers to the many questions posed by Twelve Minutes have been hard to swallow for players and critics alike, and for very good reason.
When Microsoft showcased Twelve Minutes on its E3 2019 stage, many were intrigued. This was a narrative-focused game with a unique camera perspective, an all-star cast, and a time loop mystery to solve. Now that Twelve Minutes is available, however, many have been unsatisfied with the ultimate answers. Some find its storytelling to have some merit, but many others just can't stand some of the places developer Luis Antonio chose to go.
[Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for Twelve Minutes.]
The basic premise of Twelve Minutes is that the main character, only ever referred to as "the husband," finds himself trapped in a time loop featuring an angry police officer, a surprise pregnancy, and unexplained murder accusations. Through repeated questioning of his spouse and some detective work, the husband discovers his wife remembers committing the crime, killing her father in cold blood. Continuing through the loops, the clues eventually lead players to the fact that the man they've been playing all this time is actually the murderer. Furthermore, the husband's murder victim is also his father, making the couple an incestuous brother and sister pair with a baby on the way.
There are several reasons many players would balk at such a reveal, and the first comes even before the facts present themselves. As Kotaku's Renata Price points out in her review, the husband must drug his pregnant wife and torture the police officer to get answers and continue on with the story. These actions have to be repeated over and over as the player spends hours going through Twelve Minutes' time loop to get the sequence right. This comes on top of several other plot-critical acts of violence against the wife. All are disturbing scenes that aren't advertised ahead of time, and preserving the mystery of Twelve Minutes by forgoing content warnings hasn't proven popular among many across social media.
Why So Many Players Disliked Twelve Minutes' Plot Twists
PSA for anyone looking to play 12 Minutes: While the game has a mature rating, there are no content warnings for the types of "familial violence and sexual taboos" contained in the game
— Jeff Ramos (@ohjefframos) August 18, 2021
Credits roll...
Twelve Minutes needs content warnings.
— MrTomFTW (@MrTom) August 24, 2021
Once Twelve Minutes reveals the husband and wife are half-siblings, the game has one more trick up its sleeve. The third twist of Twelve Minutes is that the apartment where the entire game takes place is actually a mental construct inside the husband's imagination. The game, then, is really an exercise in finding a scenario where the two lovers can stay together despite their extraordinary circumstances. The violence committed against the wife and the cop - who is revealed at this point to be a stand-in for the father the couple share - and the murder of the protagonist's father is all just in the husband's head.
YouTuber Skill Up was one of many critics who saw both the second and third twists as immature storytelling. Instead of imparting a relatable narrative, he said, Twelve Minutes' story dives into tropes that illicit "shock value for shock value's sake." The game strives to be a serious work, with its Hitchcockian presentation and its three world-famous voice actors, but it fumbles when it comes to the fundamentals of any narrative-focused work.
While there are interpretations that give Twelve Minutes the benefit of the doubt, the big moments of its story lean too far over the edge. The lack of content warnings and its shock-value moments are made worse by the reveal that it was all just the result of someone trying to keep the incest under wraps. Add in a repetitive structure that forces players to hit these beats over and over, and it's no wonder the story, seemingly designed to uncomfortably poke and prod at anyone who wanted to uncover its secrets, rubbed so many the wrong way.
Next: Twelve Minutes Review: A Star-Studded, Intense Mindbender
