The Talos Principle

I think that this game would be hard to recommend to a lot of people, because I think most people's idea of a video game is something they can sit down and learn the basic steps, and then do very little thinking outside of what the game throws at you. It might get progressively harder if its singleplayer, or your experiences may vary in mutliplayer.
But The Talos Principle is a game in which there is only the simple premise, to solve puzzles. That's the gameplay. And to a lot of people on the face, it is boring. I thought it was possibly going to be boring.
What I ended up playing was a game that I felt was doing its best to challenge my preexisting view of humanity, of the self, and of what it means to have free will. Sure, other games can do this as well but I think this game is perfect for an avenue of thought like that.
You're both thinking about the puzzles, but thinking about the information the games presents to you through dialogue at the same time. You ask yourself "Why?" over and over again, and you get the feeling if you just keep pushing, just solve another few puzzles or levels that you'll eventually figure it all out. What exactly? Well, I leave that to you to find out.
And you can be ignorant of all this the whole game, and just solve the puzzles too at the same time. It makes me realize that everyone's experience with this game will reflect their own curiosity and wonder, or it might reflect someone's more linear and goal-oriented mind with only wishing to solve the puzzles.
I don't want to presume it's super deep and puts forward new ideas never explored; a lot of this stuff could be explained to someone in a college lecture or another story of course. However, I think that The Talos Principle uniquely sets itself up to really engage the average layman with this if they only choose to at least have an open mind and try to press forward as much as they can. No one puts it better as Alexandra Drennan:
"Games are part of what makes us human, we see the world as a mystery, a puzzle, because we've always been a species of problem solvers."
I have been thoroughly enjoying the second one, and I think these games will become one burned into the far edges of my brain until the day it stops working.

"Frogs are people too."
The Talos Principle is a puzzle video game developed by Croteam and published by Devolver Digital.
Story
You play as an unnamed android who wakes up in a mysterious environment.
A voice calling himself Elohim instructs you to explore the worlds he created and complete puzzles inside them to gather sigils, under one condition- you cannot enter the tower in the centre of these worlds. But as you navigate through the lands, you discover your actual purpose might be way different than you originally thought.
Gameplay
As you could have guessed from genre and quick story summary, in Talos Principle you explore the worlds and solve puzzles to further progress in the game (for even more puzzles!), with a given choice of playing the game in either first or third person.
Each puzzle contains a tetromino-shaped "sigil" you have to obtain to consider a puzzle as complete.
These sigils are used to unlock new tools you need for further riddles, or to unlock new areas. You have to complete a tiling puzzle from a collected sigil set every once in a while too.
Puzzles themselfs offer a variety of challenges, depending often on what tools you can use and what stands between you and your goal. You will encounter computer controlled drones which explode if you get near them, wall mounted turrets, fans blowing you away and more! You will have to utilize everything you got at your disposal and your wits to beat these challenges. Sigils come in different colours to represent multiple difficulties. Starting green ones are simple and easy, yellow offer average challenge while red sigils are a reward for toughest puzzles and especially at the start of your journey, might be a really tough nut to crack. There are also hidden star sigils, requiring creative and sometimes crazy approach to get them, needed to unlock extra worlds.
When you are not interested in collecting sigils, you can explore a bit. Find audio logs, or use terminals to reach data texts, you might start a conversation or two too.
Discover QR messages left by other androids (including your Steam friends!), and write one yourself if you will find a bucket with paint. Plus ton upon ton of Easter Eggs, with big chunk of them focusing on other Croteam franchise, Serious Sam!
Playtime and replayability
Completing every puzzle and wrapping up the story took me very solid 20 hours.
As it tends to be with puzzles, after solving them repeating tends to be unnecessary as knowing a solution does ruin the fun and here it is the same. You might want to jump into it again if you have used a lot of guides on your playthrough or you want to repeat whole game for different ending instead of reloading older savefile, perhaps you crave a discussion about topics it covers that you might not be interested in as much previously.
Pros and cons
Without any doubt I can say: Talos Principle is absolutely wonderful. You get into it expecting well made puzzles and that is what you get right from the start. Not only it offers good difficulty curve so even newer players to the puzzle genre can slowly but surely gain confidence as you solve them, variety of challenges it provides due to mixture of tools and obstacles on your path will constantly keep your interest and desire to push forward in order to see what new riddles lie ahead.
But it quickly shows its second, more philosophical side, as the debate about machines and humans expands, sewing itself together with storyline and your ultimate goal. Each talk or audio log leaving a mark in your mind, something to think about while you hunt sigils or explore worlds to engage further in games debate. It is rather slow burn type of a story, it involves ton of reading so it won't be for everyone, but those who will dive deep and spend time on discovering it will feel satisfied. Personally, it's one of the best puzzle games I got a pleasure to play.
Final words and conclusion
I highly recommend getting Road to Gehenna DLC which brings out toughest puzzles Talos can offer, and wraps up some loose ends from main game.
Talos Principle offers both fantastic, well-crafted riddles and philosophical storyline focused on humanity that can quickly take over the spotlight if one desires so. Masterpiece of a title.
Feel free to check out my curator page for more reviews!

The Talos Principle is one of the best puzzle games of all time, featuring insanely good, creative, interesting, and mind-blowing puzzles with different mechanics, tools, and ways to solve them. This makes it a truly challenging and enjoyable experience, even for enthusiasts of the genre.
However, in my opinion, what makes The Talos Principle stand out even more than other games is its story and the abundance of philosophical approaches and content within it. The game presents the player with a profound exploration of various ideas, such as the meaning and nature of life, reality, consciousness, knowledge, ethics of progress, and AIs. The way the story is presented is really well done, being told only through dialogues of an important character for the plot and texts you can read on the game's terminals. This leaves the player to interpret and understand the game's universe, all while seamlessly intertwining the game plot with pure philosophy. The Talos Principle is one of the purest examples of how video games can truly be considered art.

One of the best puzzle games ever made. Not only are the puzzles very well designed, there's also a superb story that makes you think about life a long time after completing the game. Very, very recommended!
Score: 9.0/10

bought this game because it looked like a fun puzzle game (which it is), but it left me with an existential crisis and my faith in Christianity shatter.
10/10 would recommend

Do you like puzzles? Are you interested in existentialism? Do you enjoy pain? If you answered yes to one of these questions then this game is for you, an amazing puzzle game with an interesting take on philosophy that will put your ability to test no matter how good you think you are. If the base game can be considered hard already, the DLC is on a whole new level and I`d only recommend buying it if you are a completionist or if you really like the take on the story and just want more.

In the beginning were the words and the words made the world. I am the words. The words are everything. Where the words end the world ends. You cannot go forward in the absence of space.