Looping Across Genres: How Time Loops, Roguelikes, and Cyclical Levels Shape Narrative Structure

This paper examines loop-based video games, a category it defines to cover time loop games, roguelikes, and levels built around deliberate repetition, as a shared form of cyclical narrative design. Its central argument is that the interplay between loops and narrative is fundamental to how these games construct their storyworlds, and that different loop structures, whether strict time limits, death-and-restart cycles, or isolated looping levels, serve distinct narrative goals while sharing comparable mechanisms of repetition, player discovery, and iterative progression. The author frames the topic by noting the surge of time loop releases around 2021, including Returnal, Deathloop, The Forgotten City, and Twelve Minutes, and the continued presence of such titles in both indie and higher-budget spaces through 2026.

The paper's analytical approach combines a literature review with game text analysis of recently released loop-based titles. Its comparative framework considers three dimensions: the type of loop (strict time loop, no time limit, or single looping level), the world structure (open world, hub worlds, linear levels, or randomly generated levels), and how these choices shape narrative progression and the player's influence over story developments. Key concepts include narrative time, video game temporality, and the narrative puzzle, the last of which describes how players assemble story information through repeated attempts, gathering knowledge and solving problems across loops.

The contribution lies in addressing a gap in prior scholarship, which has tended to treat time loops and roguelike repetition separately rather than as overlapping forms of cyclical design. By positioning these structures within a single comparative category, the paper offers a framework for understanding how genres from science fiction to murder mystery adapt looping structures to different thematic ends, and it provides case studies for analysing narrative structure in an evolving body of loop-based games.