The Talos Principle

I think this is probably a game that everyone should play. I don't believe any other piece of media has ever caused me to more deeply analyze and reassess my beliefs and assumptions. I've emerged from this game with a fresh perspective.
A week later, I am still thinking about this experience, and feel compelled to write this review.

For over half a decade The Talos Principle sat in my library unplayed.
A cult classic I knew I should play but never did, until recently.
I won't dive deep into spoilers because it's best played blindly.
It is a puzzle game with a thought provoking story and world to back it up.
Puzzles are in theory simple but in practice complex, the game has a strict toolbox of items yet constantly pushes you to creatively break the rules.
While most puzzles are excellent it is the incredible story and world that will stick with you after you finish this game.
The Talos Principle is gaming’s best kept secret and this is your sign to finally play it!

Not many games can parry Portal quality of story and gameplay, but this is one of them.
10/10

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☑ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☑ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 15% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☑ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☑ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☑ 10

Released over a decade ago, I knew of this game’s immense popularity but kept putting off playing it. I think I glanced at it years ago, figured it looked complicated and was waiting for a time I could be bothered to play something “complicated”.
The word that came up repeatedly in my head was not “complicated”, but “satisfying”.
Plonked into an odd landscape of crumbling buildings, something is not quite natural about the lay of the land. A voice calls out, “Behold, child”, the voice identifies itself as Elohim, your maker. I thought this was an interesting name, so I Googled it, it seemingly being a Hebrew word for God. So, strange sky-voice, you claim to be my maker?
Elohim tells us they have “created trials for you to overcome”, and “you will serve the generations to come and attain eternal life”. This marked the beginning of many questions asked about the nature of the game, what exactly is happening and what your purpose is. I would say this game is philosophical in a very classic sense. It encourages you to question everything regarding what you’re experiencing, and you find computer terminals in the landscape which drip-feed you context, as well as giving you mythology story segments and philosophical thought experiments to think about.
In my recent review for The Witness, another first-person puzzler tagged “philosophical”, I said that for that game you needed to be an innately curious person as well as love puzzles enough that being rewarded with more puzzles is not draining to you. This game definitely feels like it sits along similar lines. If you enjoyed The Witness I think you will love this game. If you did not enjoy The Witness though, I think there is a fair chance you will still enjoy this game. The puzzles & overall story in this game feel like they would be enjoyable to a larger audience.
I found the puzzles incredibly satisfying. Which I think is down to the fact that for most, I could work out what the intention of the puzzle was relatively quickly, so it was instead just how to execute the solution. With puzzles, if it’s 98% figuring out, and then 2% executing at the end, I can get quite frustrated. I thought back to later levels of Portal 2 where the puzzles were large & overwhelming and it took me ages to realise what to do. Here, I could have a quick look around and go “right, I see”. Then it’s just about execution. Over and over I was brought back to my keyword, “satisfying”.
The game is also kind enough to indicate what you have completed and what you haven’t, as far as to indicate hidden bonus puzzles to solve. I was worried at first they would be a pain, but if you search puzzles/the map thoroughly, it’s not too bad. There are some really creative hidden puzzles.
I don’t really want to spoil anything as this feels like a game best played going in blind, but I personally found the world & story engrossing up to the very end. It’s a great concept for a game and there was so many interesting elements of this game to think about. I really enjoyed reading the emails between the humans and slowly finding out what happened. Thinking about a situation in which humanity, with no room for denial, has to think about what to do in a guaranteed extinction event was very interesting. It’s something that no human in history has ever had to genuinely think about. How would people choose to live and interact in those last moments?
It was very intriguing finding out what you are a part of, judging Elohim & his motives, finding the QR codes on the walls and pondering philosophical questions with the seemingly sentient archive assistant, Milton.
While I play games, I usually write notes as I go along and then read through them afterwards. The number of questions about the game that I wrote down as I went along was a lot, but better yet, once I got to the end I felt that all of the questions were answered. Not directly, but enough puzzle pieces were put together to answer those questions for myself. That is a pretty ideal outcome for a game that invokes so many questions.
My interpretation is that:
humans wanted a legacy, and creating a rudimentary AI and putting it in a long-term simulation to nurture it, with the intention of it self-learning and becoming sentient was how they chose to try and preserve (or recreate) humanity. Philosophically we question what it is to be human, and what qualifies as personhood. Some argue that there are defined criteria for personhood, and that some animals actually pass enough of these tests to qualify. The environment seems to simulate some of these tests.
The AI starts as basic code, solving puzzles, listening to Elohim as it sees this as direct instruction. As one note says, “In the earliest generations of our kind there was only processing. No emotion, no character, just mathematics”. The puzzles engage the code, in time encouraging defined motor skills and critical thinking.
It starts to become self-aware and questions where it is, what its purpose is. It learns to communicate and cooperate with the other iterations of the AI and it starts to speculate and conspire. Some believe Elohim, others turn to nihilism, or press on looking for the truth.
Milton serves as a form of conscience, the skeptical voice in your head, questioning all of your beliefs. Whether he was intended or gained sentience himself, he seems a useful learning tool for the AI.
The archive serves as access to the entirety of human culture and nuance, an indirect teacher.
The tables only start to turn once the AI gains curiosity. A program would not defy its programming, but a person would grow curious as to who this authority in the sky really is, and what happens if you don’t do as it says. As one voice log says, “Is there anything we associate more closely with intelligence than curiosity?”. Elohim is there to separate the machines from those with potential.
For you to ascend, many other iterations before you had to fail, but once the AI has gained intelligence (puzzles), self-awareness (other AI), empathy (co-operation) and curiosity (the tower), it is ready.
You can either do as Elohim says, and end back at the beginning, a failed iteration, or you defy Elohim, scale the tower, and ascend, deleting the simulation and waking up on Earth, the true child of humanity.
One fun thing to think about also: Is Elohim sentient? When you first step into the Tower he says “Cannot detect location of primary subject - Query”. Elohim seems a sham, outside of his parameters, you break his programming. And yet, when you start to get ever closer to the top of the tower he pleads with you to turn back. "Yes, it leads to freedom and truth, but it also leads to the end of us”,”I know you seek the truth, but here we can create our own truth”.
If we consider that Elohim and many iterations of the AI are actually sentient, does this mean we destroy (kill) them if we ascend?
There are 3 different endings, which is something I did not expect at all (if you want to experience them all in one playthrough, make sure to use the “backup” feature towards the end of the game).
Not the philosophical type? Even without going through this game with a completionist mentality and wanting to find every possible thing to contemplate over, it’s still an extremely good puzzle game.
Achievements: Included
You need to be quite the completionist to 100% this one. You will likely need at least 2 playthroughs, and there is also some DLC achievements.
For more reviews of this genre, check out my curator page The Best: First-Person Puzzle Games
For more reviews of games with psychological, philosophical or thought-provoking themes, check out my curator page Psychology, Philosophy & Thought,

from puzzles easy enough to insult your intellect, to puzzles hard enough, you feel embarassed to feel that dumb. great game. can't wait to play the sequel to feel like an idiot, like a genius, like an idiot and like a genius again, in the same rythm you took to read this.

So I finally finished this game, well technically I did. What can I say about it? well The Talos Principle is a really engaging puzzle game and has some neat things to offer for anyone who likes these sorts of puzzle games. Although I would recommend you..
GET THIS GAME ON SALE!
This is a good game worth playing if you're into puzzle solving, however I didn't rush to buy it until it was obviously below 30 bucks. I think I got it at 10 dollars? maybe in 2014 it was worth that much, but the sale is what got me to play it. Besides that, onto the review!
the graphics
This wont be a long section, but the graphics in this game are beautiful. Alot might say its "outdated", I would insist that it looks way better than most games now a days. plus for something that came out in 2014, It holds up really well! Honestly I looked at the remaster and didn't get blown away by the "comparison" anything from this era looked fine. The landscapes are great to look at and there is a variety to the overall world design. ex. snow, desert, forest, etc. The gameplay did slow on me a couple times, but I think that has to do more with how many things are loaded and running throughout the level while playing which brings me to..
the gameplay
When I got the game I sort of already figured out what kind of game it was gonna be, Looked alot like portal. Well its actually sort of similar; a simulation, no real worry about dying, puzzles that make you think. It was basically portal without the portal gun and a philosophy book added to it.
There isn't much of a variety in terms of what the game throws at you, however it flowed with the game fine and each had its own purpose in the puzzle usage. the puzzles themselves were good, basic but also challenging at times. I had fun figuring them out and it was satisfying once you complete one. Some took longer than others, although I never actually used a guide for any of them, usually if its unsolvable you try another time and later on it clicks what you're suppose to do. I was able to solve every puzzle without aggravation or frustration, no puzzle in this game was BS imo . Most puzzles took 5-20 minutes again depending on the player and knowledge of the game, now that I've played it, the game might be much shorter now that every puzzle is easy. It took me at least more than 15 hours to complete the base game, not counting star collecting, and thats with all the taking my time, thinking, and walking around in mind.
the story
not really gonna spoil a more than decade old game, however there are some different endings depending on how you interact with the terminal and game. something so 2010s with the decision making, It was a fun throwback. It was pretty interesting on how the game structured itself with the terminal and player, nothing earth shattering once you remind yourself its just a puzzle game, nonetheless it flowed with the gameplay and kept you wondering what might happen in the end. kind of anticlimactic, however I haven't played the second game so perhaps more "lore" is added. Although it was interesting, I didn't really engage with the story as much as I did with the puzzles.
MINI SPOILER
I don't know if I would even call it that, but with the game being this sort of "simulation" type, I really was expecting something spooky to pop up during gameplay Not really anything, however that one moment where the other robot is screaming and running scared tf out of me, plus the computer head dude freaked me out when he popped up nothing is gonna jump at you, nor is there any real need to be on edge. Theres my stamp of approval
closing thoughts
This game was short, didn't expect it to be really long, but it was enjoyable. I will say though that there isn't really that much to explore. I'm one of those people who will free roam every inch of the area to see if theres anything interesting to interact with and really nothing. AND NO IM NOT COUNTING EASTER EGGS. it was honestly a bit bare bones IMHO, especially for a game from the 2010s, however with the small dev team I didnt expect it to be anything like that. I really thought there would be some sort of replayability to the game, but I guess the DLC and squeakuel do that? I don't think I will play it anytime soon unless im wanting to collect all stars and speedrun the game. now that looks pretty cool to do a few times! The controls were fine, obviously puzzle games dont neeed a whole lot of control. I felt the movement and mechanics to be satisfactory, nothing mind blowing, but good and easy to pick up and play.
Oooh the music, I actually turned off the music early on as a choice I usually do with games because I put background sound or videos to accompany my puzzle solving. So I don't really have any say in the music, however Im pretty sure its fine, It has that puzzle-like music that comes with the atmosphere.
This game Is a good puzzle brain teaser, you really feel on top of the world once you complete all these puzzles knowing each their own nic and nac to it! Now I don't think its a 10/10 game by any stretchh of the meanns not even close. It's a fun puzzle solving game with some mechanics that keep it interesting and create a satisfying feeling once completing a piece.
TLDR; I would say this is a game worth playing once you get a good deal on it, sometimes its even more than 50% off! Don't expect anything "game of the year" type of expectations, however I would rate this game to be a simulating 7/10 and maybe even a 7.5/10 on a good day. Thanks for reading!