I had read the books and played games, and while I knew the storylines I still kept getting a bit tangled in the timelines. But then again the books with their short story format also jumped around. So while some things were obvious as different times, some things were only apparent in hindsight, even if I had some frame of reference that the average viewer would not have. So I think it HAD to be purposeful, because it was confusing even to me, but I only realized HOW confusing it was in the last episodes.