One of the profound things about Portal was the surreal way in which it bent perception, when you’d be staring into a portal and seeing the back of Chell’s head. Reset, by Theory Interactive, takes that as a starting point, and things only get weirder from there. 

As seen in this reality-bending new tutorial, the aptly-named game uses a “reset mechanic,” which allows players to mark their position in space-time, continue solving a puzzle, and then jump backward in time. It’s sort of like the way they say that when you time travel, your actions in the past could change the future, but in reverse. Confused? Me too. Just watch the trailer. 

This is another example of how the first-person perspective is evolving, as creators move away from its traditional use of shooting soldiers and experiment with the form. We’ve seen it with narrative games like Dear Esther and Gone Home, musical games like Proteus, and games that screw with your perception of physics, like this. Let the renaissance commence.