10 Gaming Endings That Get Worse The More You Think About It

By the time the end credits roll on the recent mystery-thriller Twelve Minutes, you probably imagine it can't really get any worse, but think again.

The game, which follows a man trapped in a time loop, concludes with the nauseating revelation that the woman he's married to is his half-sister, and for good measure she's also pregnant with his child.

It's certainly a shocking and unexpected twist, one which has proven massively divisive with players and critics alike. Some fascinating think-pieces have also been written about the game which delved deeper into its themes and context.

One of the more interesting theories which makes Twelve Minutes an even bleaker game suggests it is effectively a metaphor for misogyny and, ultimately, male privilege.

Twelve Minutes repeatedly allows the husband to either directly abuse his wife - even drugging or stabbing her - or otherwise watch horrible abuse of her happen in order to make sense of his own trauma.

A woman's suffering is here merely a device for which a man can overcome his troubles, and while that's certainly provocative and complex ground for a game to cover, opinion is heavily divided on whether Twelve Minutes is merely a game about misogyny or actually also misogynistic itself.

Either way, it's far more interesting and twisted than simply the headline-grabbing ickiness of incest - a clever, if perhaps troubling use of the time loop format to depict the cyclical nature of domestic violence and female oppression.