The Talos Principle 2 Review: Philosophical Puzzle Perfection
What is a human? A fleshy creature capable of empathy? A social construct that we’ve created for classification and little else? A filthy little pile of secrets? These are the questions that The Talos Principle tackled with forwardness and enthusiasm, taking something as inquisitive and profound as philosophical ponderings and injecting them into a well-designed puzzle game.
Developed by Croteam and published by Devolver Digital, The Talos Principle 2 takes on the same questions as its predecessor but puts them into motion, featuring a cast of robots that make claim to humanity, emulating it as best as possible, warts and all. While its existential crises and philosophical diatribes aren’t for everyone, I can safely say that this puzzler is certain to tempt and satisfy even the pickiest problem-solver.
Humankind 2.0
Because flesh was so last century.
Set years after the complete extinction of mankind due to a virus released by melting permafrost, the world is ready for the next generation of sentience to rekindle civilization. As a last contingency, humans set up a project designed to more-or-less create a robot capable of defying authority and exhibiting curiosity, with hopes that it’ll be able to take up the mantle humanity leaves behind. Put simply, this project succeeded, and after some time, 1000 robots, all modeled with humanity in mind, are rolled out, with the player being #1000 (1K for short), the last planned product of the bunch.
Creating a new human in The Talos Principle 2 entails going through a short puzzle-focused simulation run before you’re clear to be introduced to New Jerusalem, the first city developed by this humankind and a hub for everyone to get grips on their newfound role as the only critically thinking people on Earth. Just after being rolled out of the assembly line, you’ll be greeted with a giant purple hologram in the guise and name of Prometheus. It invites the new humans to his island prison where a mysterious and absolutely gargantuan techno-pyramid called the Megastructure waits to be explored, and the residents of New Jerusalem have varied opinions on this thing, from intrigue to fear. Someone’s going to have to check all this out, which is where 1K joins a group of fellow explorers to answer this cryptic call.
Something to keep in mind when starting up The Talos Principle 2 is that you don’t have to worry too much about missing vital details from the first game. The Talos Principle 2 is, for the most part, self-contained, but you’ll get a richer experience with the world-building if you’re familiar with the first game. You can get a short, long, and even an extra-long version of the first game’s events the moment you go through the tutorial, and I appreciate that there’s so much consideration given to the players right off the bat. Can you skip most of the story and just get along to the puzzles? Yes, and while most of the plot here does follow a line of story events you’ll witness as you explore the Megastructure, it’s harmless enough that you can backseat the plot in favor of just solving puzzles. For this grand adventure, you’ll be paired up with a team of other robots, all with individual personalities, from the critical-minded Melville to the adventurous Yaqut. For being the best imitations of humanity they can be, they really do feel like legitimate humans, responding realistically to concerns and questions regarding their adventure. I really appreciated how this crew was handled, because in a game where humanity is the question of the day, isn’t it only right to add fuel to the fire by making our uncanny-looking robots all that much more relatable? There are a lot of side characters that you can meet up with in New Jerusalem, too, as well as participate in a social media-esque forum to interact with these side characters, all with their own personalities and motives that they’ll show in the occasional philosophical banter from time to time.
I’d argue a good half of this game is focused on philosophy, and I’d also say that half the fun of The Talos Principle 2 is interacting with these thought-provoking questions. If a robot is capable of humanlike emotion and logical reasoning, is it right to consider it just as human as we are? Is it right for humans to strive for power and knowledge, even knowing it could lead to their downfall? Are humans right to play God? The Talos Principle 2 is best enjoyed with an open mind, curiosity, and reasonability, as the questions at play here really have no right or wrong answers – only careful consideration and answering as you feel best. To that end, The Talos Principle 2 handles things perfectly, almost always offering a wide range of responses from callous to inquisitive to outright absurd. If you’re the type that doesn’t take things seriously, you can respond in kind. If you hate the idea of “the man” (or “the mayor” in this case) telling you what you can and cannot do, you can lean into that defiance. Or, on the contrary, you can follow the rules as closely as you can and never stray from your lane. All of the dialogue options feel unique and help with integrating the player into their newfound role of emulating whichever flavor of humanity you want 1K to represent. Sure, some of this can come across as a “Best Hits of a Philisophy 101” textbook with how on-the-nose it can be. Still, at the end of the conversations, The Talos Principle 2 just wants you to consider and reflect in kind, and I think it’s handled in a very elegant and considerate way.
Puzzle Me This
Leave it to Croteam to cram a reference and a subtle puzzle solution in just two words.
With all these questions being asked, I’m sure one you’re wondering yourself is how good the actual puzzle-solving side is. There were so many times that I completed a puzzle and got a straight shot of happy brain juices, looking at solutions so elaborate but logical that it left me stunned. Half of me couldn’t help but admire how creatively The Talos Principle 2 uses its mechanics in such unique and complex ways. The other half of me couldn’t help but wonder how many people were going to get stuck on the very problem I just solved (of which we have guides for them if you’re so inclined).
I think the greatest boon to The Talos Principle 2 is just how damn smooth its difficulty ramp is. It always starts off limited, with only a few rooms and mechanics at work, getting you up to speed with the various ways certain mechanics can be used. You’ll go a few rooms, and they drip feed more and more pieces to these puzzles and start using them in ways you probably wouldn’t normally think to use them. Yet, the problem-solving process never seemed to elude me, and even on the times I stared with true confoundment, I could walk away from a puzzle, do another one, then have my “Eureka!” moment and head back to a previous puzzle with newfound insight and solve it in a flash. It’s genuinely one of the most endorphin-releasing puzzle games I’ve played in many years now, and I can’t praise it enough for making the feel of puzzle solving so damn satisfying.
Something that makes the puzzle-solving process absolutely simple to pick up and figure out is how the mechanics translate to player input. For example, one of the most common devices you’ll pick up is laser connectors, basically a tripod with a crystal on top of it meant to bridge the gap between a laser eminator and a laser receptacle. The way this is handled via the controller is that you can pick it up and, upon pressing the button to assign that tripod to whichever points you’d like, it makes dotted lines showing where it’s connected and even indicates which ones it can reach by coloring the dotted line white or black. When you’re getting ready to set up a Driller to poke a hole through a wall, you can freely move the reticle, and the hole will follow, so you don’t have to keep deploying it over and over to get just the right angle. There’s no shortage of baked-in accessibility using these mechanics, and I cannot thank Croteam enough for making the process so painless to figure out and use. I’ve spent less time troubleshooting placement and mechanic usage here than in any other puzzle game I’ve ever played because of these simple but incredibly useful features, and offering a pretty filled-out controller remap and accessibility functions, if you’re so inclined, is just icing on the cake.
The format for these puzzle-solving segments is fairly straightforward. There are twelve areas, with ten puzzles each, that you’ll work through. You’ll need to solve at least eight of the puzzles to get enough tetrominoes that’ll serve as your path to a main tower that each area has. Get to the top of that tower, have a quick chat with a holographic entity, and turn on a laser that’ll be aimed at whichever side of the Megastructure you’re facing. Every three towers you turn on, you’ll get to enter the Megastructure, which has a list of smaller, compartmentalized puzzles you’ll solve and get one step closer to unraveling the mystery behind this towering construct. Adding to this, if you have the foresight to seek out some hidden puzzles in the hub areas containing the puzzles, you’ll find a few boons to benefit from, like a pickup that’ll simply set any puzzle you’re having a hell of a time to being solved. The flexibility here is just right, encouraging players to give it their all in filling out an area, while not leaving them crap out of luck if they just can’t get to grips with a few puzzles. That said, these boons are finite, so be considerate of when and where you use these pickups. Along the way, you can find a plethora of lore and dialogue from the past that’ll contribute to the world-building, should you choose to pursue it.
Really, these hub areas are gorgeously designed, and while the biomes are played straight as can be with things like sun-soaked canyons and frigid mountaintops, they’re still creatively designed. Giant structures made by the planet’s previous inhabitants litter these areas, either providing platforms for puzzle rooms or just adding aesthetic grandeur. I loved casually strolling along these well-crafted mini-biomes, because of all the little secrets and beautiful scenery, encouraging and often rewarding the player for soaking in the worldspace and getting a little curious while you’re at it. I do feel that the Megastructure environments needed a bit more fleshing out, as they’re all set up in the same overgrown stonework construction that I think would’ve benefitted maybe reflecting an average of the biomes you explored to get to that particular side of the Megastructure. Ultimately, though, even with the more sparse Megastructure, I never found an area I straight-up didn’t like. You add in a tranquil and often beautiful soundtrack that is on par, if not exceeds, the tunes from the first game, and there’s plenty of reason to linger around the vistas of this nature hike, all with the PS5 rendering this in absolutely gorgeous detail and with silky smooth framerate to boot.
Thought Provoking In The Best Sense
Whether you’re pondering the meaning of life and existence or racking your brains solving some carefully crafted puzzles, The Talos Principle 2 takes everything great about the first game and refines it to perfection. Croteam spins philosophy in just the right light, asking hard-hitting questions in a lenient and digestible manner while presenting the player with a wealth of ways you can respond to them. But if you’re just here to solve a few puzzles, there’s no skimping on the quality here at all, and you’re free to skip right through the plot if you want to get straight to the mind melting. The learning curve is so well implemented that anyone should be able to pick up and learn the ropes here, and finding the solutions to these puzzles is ever-so-satisfying. If you’ve got a taste for puzzle games, you don’t want to miss out on The Talos Principle 2.
Final Verdict 5/5
Available on: Steam, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 (Reviewed), Xbox Series X|S; Publisher: Devolver Digital; Developer: Croteam; Number of Players: 1; Released: November 2nd, 2023; MSRP: $29.99
Full disclosure: A copy of The Talos Principle 2 was provided by the publisher.
