Time Loops and the Modern Sisyphus
Heavy, full-story spoilers ahead for Overboard! (2021), Twelve Minutes (2021), The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (2000), Outer Wilds (2019), Oxenfree (2016), The Forgotten City (2021), and Elsinore (2019).
The Hill
In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a deceitful and shrewd king. He maintained power through cruelty, and always seemed to find a way to subvert punishment and accountability for his actions. His sharp mind became his undoing, as he antagonized and made enemies of the gods themselves. In time, he eventually landed himself in the Underworld permanently. No more tricks, no more sleight of hand, no way to outfox the inevitable. And for his hubris, Sisyphus was cursed with an impossible task: move a boulder up a steep hill, only for the boulder to slip away and tumble to the bottom of the hill any time Sisyphus grew close to his goal. And there he toiled, and continues to toil, on one task, for all eternity.
Time loops have long been a comforting concept to me. Even if I were stuck in a single day, the thrill of being able to experience as much as I could in that single day, the safety of knowing that the same morning just awaited me at the end, being able to truly see a thousand-thousand permutations of the same day, or just as much live in that state of expected serenity day after day…fascinating, exciting, and calming, all at once. Just think, especially in the world we live in now: a repeating loop of time, while you have access to the world’s knowledge, and all the time in the world to harvest it.
But in the last few years, with the rise of time loop-based games, I began to wonder if it was all wishful thinking. Could living that life, or that non-life, still be what I hoped it could be? How long would it take before that feeling of variety on one stage melted into monotony? How long until I could exhaust all options? How long until their new day, and my innumerable days, became unbearable? How long until one’s own humanity began to wane in the face of eternity?
When does the dream I get to live become a waking nightmare? Can it be both things?
I consider it this way: what is the purpose of living out the same day, the same time, over and over again?
The Punishment
I think of Sisyphus again, doomed and damned to that same, cyclical experience, that unchanging sky underground: always going up the hill, back down the hill, up, down, up, down. The loop is a Punishment, reserved for those most deserving of suffering themselves after begetting suffering in life. The loop is a form of hell, of suffering. Whether at the start, when all we want is to move on, or some way through, when the fascinating becomes a chore. When do we start staring at the boulder on our way up, imagining faces in it, grasping at the miniscule, hoping for something new?
Overboard! (2021) puts you in control of Veronica Villensey, a socialite who’s vying to get away with murder after flipping her no-good husband overboard on the last leg of a transatlantic journey. Veronica is bound to fail her quest at first, but finds herself back in her cabin, the morning after she saw to her husband’s demise: a time loop. She learns more and more about the other passengers and the otherwise-damning evidence throughout the ship; how to manipulate it, misdirect the people, and play them against one another.
In time, Veronica may learn how to (incrementally) get away with the murder, get her husband’s life insurance payout, and do away with a vile blackmailer. Or maybe she gives up and launches herself off the ship to regrettably join her rotting husband. Or maybe she just loses it, throws everyone overboard, and turns into a dolphin. You do you, Ms. Villensey.
But every time, she wakes with a start in her cabin, forced to relive the most daunting day of her life. She never snaps back to before launching her husband overboard, it’s always after. She can never take back the decision that sets her on this mad quest to divert suspicion: she is always on the defensive, always trying to cover her tracks. Even in the situations where she “wins,” it doesn’t break the spell, as it were; she wakes right back up in her cabin, having recently thrown her husband overboard, and is doomed to forever be get away with murder.
Twelve Minutes (2021) is a different kind of punishment. An unnamed Husband returns home to his Wife before an Intruder breaks into their apartment, threatening the Wife and killing the Husband; he loops back to walking into the apartment that night. If he dies or is assaulted within those twelve minutes, the loop resets. If he leaves the apartment, the loop resets. If he tries to wait everything out, the loop resets after twelve minutes. While the Husband strives to figure out, the loop rapidly becomes unbearable, not for its inescapability, but its scope.
Twelve minutes. We don’t even think about twelve minutes most of the time. That’s nothing; blink & you miss it. To be locked in a time loop is one thing to consider, but to be locked in such a narrow loop is a different nightmare. There’s no time to make the most of it; by the time you try, it’s already time to start over. But everything starts to click into place, even in that narrow time limit. The Husband is trying to solve the mystery of what’s going on, but realizes all too late that solving the mystery doesn’t lead to escape. Who he is has and what he’s done has already laid the groundwork for his punishment, and now he’s just bouncing between the four walls of his own making.
But then there’s Link, the perfect, archetypal hero of Hyrule and beyond. The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (2000) gives us Link after the events of Ocarina of Time, accidentally stumbling into an impossible situation: save the land of Termina in three days, before the moon crashes into the town and razes the entire region. His situation is not a punishment as the other examples, foisted upon them due to their actions and legacies. Link’s punishment stands aside because it’s entirely self-inflicted.
Consider this: loops in the other games happen independent of both player and character. But in Majora’s Mask, players (and, by extension, Link) choose to travel back to the start of those three days. Some of this can be chalked up to the kind of character Link is, and the kind of game he is found in: a hero’s journey. The quest must be completed, the citizens must be helped, the world must be saved. And so, with the moon bearing down on Termina, Link sends himself hurtling back in time. He initiates the loop, he perpetuates the cycle, he begets his own punishment, each and every time. His knowledge and awareness remain, but everyone else just starts back at the beginning of those days. Their troubles remain, their grief remains, their ignorance to what awaits them remains.
Link has already hurtled back and forth in time, after the events of Ocarina of Time, but where he kept pace with the world before, now he’s the only one growing around it. And aside from the mechanical “so there’s a game to play,” why does Link do it, keep subjecting himself to the same days again and again? It is because he believes he can save everyone? Because he thinks it’s his duty, even after everything he’s been through already? Can anyone in that situation truly help everyone, save the land, and still be who they were when they became lost in the woods to begin with?
To be trapped by forces out of your control is one thing. But to feel trapped by your own sense of obligation, of duty, of a destiny you never asked for…that’s an entirely new brand of punishment.
The Opportunity
I think of Sisyphus again, humbled by his centuries of toil, truly changed by what was once a punishment. Introspective. Softened. Kinder, through all that time to reflect. As Sartre suggested that Hell is other people, perhaps Hell is simply oneself and one’s thoughts, but not as a traditional punishment. An Opportunity, found by those able to move past the initial feelings of rote and monotony, and instead see a chance to be more, to do more, not out of necessity, but out of desire. It’s a chance to be better while functionally immortal than we were (or could be) in life.
Here lies that fantasy of eternal life, even in a single day. What would we become if we could remember? My friend and I fantasized about this after watching Palm Springs (2020), especially watching as one of the protagonists used that time to learn about (and manipulate) quantum physics in an effort to escape the loop. In Opportunity-based time-loops, the loop may initially be seen as a punishment, but that melts away with the hope of something better coming from it. To learn things, to solve a mystery, to be forced to grow, all in the hopes of manipulating what one has discovered to improve both themselves and even just a part of the world: that’s the Opportunity.
Oxenfree (2016) is a fantastic little gem on its own, hiding the time loop in the closing moments of its narrative. The protagonist, Alex, has just done some wild paranormal-island-mystery-solving. As she returns triumphant to the mainland, explaining how everything went with her and her friends after that trip, *bzzt* she’s back on the ferry, heading to the island. Starting over reveals that Alex is confused, and unsettled, as though she’d just done this before. And she has.
Exploring the island again reveals pockets of distortion between Now-Alex and Previous-Alex, seemingly interacting between loops. Dialogue choices made in the past “loop” resurface in the current loop, and Alex (and the player) may find themselves guided by those past loops to optimize the current loop. Whatever form that takes (saving or sacrificing characters, maintaining or destroying relationships), it’s up to the Alex to inevitably pull the ripcord and attempt to break the loop once and for all. By reaching out past the loop, she communicate with herself before she’s jumped onto the ferry, potentially breaking the loop while retaining all the positive change she’s managed to create and maintain. Will New Alex remember everything Old Alex had to do to give her that chance? Are they different entities at all? Will Old Alex even exist to enjoy the fruits of her struggle? Is it enough to have made a difference, even if it’s impossible for anyone to express their thanks for it? Oxenfree doesn’t say for certain, but it relishes in the opportunity for Alex to grow through repeat trips to the island.
In The Forgotten City (2021), the protagonist finds themselves hurtled back in time, exploring a sparsely-populated, subterranean Roman city. At first, they (and players) know very little, but by the end of their first runaround, they know the basics: the city’s statues come alive and attack its inhabitants if anyone violates the “Golden Rule;” the protagonist can travel back to the start of the day after the Golden Rule has been enacted (provided their knowledgeable ally is alive to open such a portal); and someone is responsible for triggering the Golden Rule’s response. The goal is clear: find out who’s triggering the rule’s enaction and report back to your ally.
You learn about the citizens, their habits, the quirks of the city itself. Doing so takes you all across the city, meeting those same citizens, learning about their lives and concerns, living in a constant state of paranoia about the Golden Rule. But not you; as long as you’re quick on your feet (and not a cliffdiving idiot like I was), you’ll be able to run back to the city temple, avoid judgment and go back to the start of the day, laden with new knowledge and insight. In time, you’ll be running out of a portal like a veritable oracle, grabbing the shoulders of the first guy you see to tell him “do these things right now so people don’t die” and buggering off to go do some other mystery stuff.
Deeper and deeper the rabbit hole goes, but it’s not a sense of dread or punishment awaiting; genuine curiosity and mystery have long since taken over. You continue to learn, to interact, to discover the inner workings and history of the city. Each new loop begets new knowledge and understanding, making the protagonist that much more powerful in both knowledge and perspective.
And in the end, the protagonist is freed, freeing the city’s denizens along with them. By that loop, the protagonist just rolled out of a portal, gave a bunch of instructions to some rando near the temple, and walked right into the central monument before God itself seemingly decreed that the Golden Rule was being put to rest. But for all their loops, all those repeated conversations and events, they learned enough to stand against God and convince them that they, in all their wisdom, were wrong.
Lastly, there’s Outer Wilds (2019), putting players in the shoes of a space Explorer in a small solar system. On paper, it seems similar to Twelve Minutes: after twenty-two minutes, the system’s sun goes supernova, wiping out the entire system. You can try to outrun it, or you can accidentally beat it to the punch and launch yourself into the sun, but all roads lead to the same: a final breath, and then a sharp inhale as the Explorer wakes up on their planet again. But, again, it feels less a punishment, and more an invitation to solve the mystery: why is the sun going supernova? What can we do to stop it? What were the ancient civilizations trying to accomplish, now that we can decode their language?
Each journey out into the system has the potential for knowledge and learning, all stacked on top of one another. When you learn how to manipulate light, space, and certain elements, it opens up other pathways elsewhere in the system. Object permanence. Black holes. Individual planets’ layouts. Audio-tracking. Everything is a mystery that begs to be solved, and the time loop grants the explorer what they need in order to solve those mysteries: time and life.
As they learn more, the Explorer more efficiently journeys the system, cracking open its mysteries bit by bit, finding where and how they all connect. Everything comes to a head. By way of their loops, they are given the ultimate opportunity: to give way to new life, forging a new universe amidst the inevitable. All because they were given a mystery to solve, and time to solve it.
Opportunity takes many forms, but by the hypothetical power granted by such loops, more is possible than ever thought before.
The Serenity
And I think of Sisyphus again, beyond the stage of acceptance, beyond death, beyond fear. No growth left to be had, no introspection. This is it for him, now and forever. Him, his thoughts, his labor. No changes, no surprises. The punishment has melted away, he has taken the opportunity to become more, and this simply becomes the norm. A Serenity, wishful in theory, even if fully unattainable in life.
But for a time, it was, in some small part, attainable. In the early throes of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, I felt that strange sense of calm serenity, removed from the worst of the infection as I was. I was working in college Housing; we had sent all the children to their own homes, and then we just…were. We had access to food, our electricity continued to run, and the school year was only partly over. Every day was largely the same, Monday to Monday. My staff would check in with each other, close as we were. And things became routine. We would work for a little while (not much to do in our sector without students), play games, go for walks, rest for, what seemed, the first time since we started working there. Every so often, I would venture out to the grocery stores and get food for everyone. On our walks, we would see the same people, at the same time, doing the same thing. The roads were empty more than they were driven on. It was beautiful.
For the backdrop of a global pandemic, I had never felt more peaceful. Every day was the same. True, rote consistency beget true peace. In the end, because I knew what to expect, everything just came easier.
That dovetails into Elsinore (2019). As I’ve noted, long ago, Elsinore presents a new, interactive experience of Shakespeare’s tragedy of Hamlet. Ophelia, an otherwise-minor character in the play, becomes aware of events and stuck in a four-day time loop: at the end of four days, if nothing is done, Hamlet will have killed many, and himself, and the castle will fall to invaders.
Controlling Ophelia gives her, and players, the chance to alter that “canon” narrative, setting new events into play: prevent Hamlet from murdering (or murdering as much); doing the murdering yourself; running away from Elsinore entirely; surrendering the city to invaders; or even just consigning herself to her original, terrible fate of suicide by drowning. But the more people play, the more they explore, the more becomes apparent that these are all just roads that converge in one point. Not invasion, nor death, nor simply “the canon,” but instead, tragedy.
All endings, all routes that Ophelia can discover, cost something great, either to herself or those she loves. Her life, her prestige, her innocence, her family, sanity, peace, stability, or her very humanity, can all be sacrificed for a greater good, or a simple release. Everything Ophelia can do is with the underpinning of tragedy. She can escape with her family, but they will become destitute. She can run away with a new lover, but knows that he will leave her in time. She can trap the omnipotent stagemaster in this same loop, but will never find release herself. She alone can survive, but at the cost of everyone’s lives. The story is a tragedy; it can be nothing but.
But in that recognition, of exploring all of those possible outcomes, perhaps there is a shred of comfort. We can flavor the inevitable, but we cannot change the dish. We can change actors’ lines, but we cannot change the play. There may be relief in knowing what to expect, no matter how we try to mix it up. Not so much defeatist as it is ultimately accepting. Serene in what we know awaits us. Perhaps, what a relief to know that, no matter how he adjusts his poise, or changes his approach, Sisyphus’s boulder will always roll back when he gets close to the top. Not a matter of if, but when. Certainty that begets Serenity.
The Boulder
As much as I love narrative endings, I fear my own mortality. Even on the days when life is its most difficult, the uncertainty of death, the finality of everything that I know, all that I’ve ever known, is the thing that frightens me most. But I know, as objectively as I can, that it’s only by having had a life at all that I fear death. Only by having existed do I fear nonexistence. That’s why I love the concept of time loops so much; it’s just a chance to stave off the inevitable, and maybe, maybe, be better for that extra time.
I used to think the point of time loop games was to find the perfect ending, just the right combination of choices and domino effects that would lead to the best outcome. Not so much anymore. It’s less about the ending, and more the journey. Those loops can be a curse and a punishment on some creature for some sin that they can’t even fathom. Or they can be a chance, an opportunity to grow past what they are and into what they are truly capable of. Or maybe it’s just a series of webs spiraling out from a central inevitability. Sometimes, it’s a matter of circumstance. Sometimes, perspective.
When does that window of relived time begin to falter into monotony? Perhaps only when we resign ourselves to it. What do we do when we’ve exhausted all options? Perhaps we create our own from there. When do we lose our humanity in the face of eternity? Perhaps only when we decide to. What is the purpose of living out the same day, the same time, over and over again? Perhaps that depends on the person.
Our drive in those games may be dictated by narrative, but in the end, we’re all just pushing, carrying, or dragging that boulder up the hill, over and over again. Up, and down, up, and down, loop upon loop upon loop. Maybe we make it to the top of the hill. Maybe we don’t. Maybe we wish we hadn’t. And maybe, just maybe, we’re just content seeing beauty in the boulder itself as we continue up, and down.
