The Talos Principle II (2023)

I play a lot of puzzle games, and often find myself describing them in my reviews as a "cute little puzzle game," a "sweet little puzzle game," a "fun little puzzle game" - you get the idea. But there's nothing little about this puzzle game.

It's everything from the original Talos Principle, and so much more. Puzzle rooms, stars, and optional bonus rooms. Connectors and disruptors are joined by a range of interesting new laser-and-energy-field-manipulating tools like inverters, accumulators, combiners, and energizers and a "driller" tool that can bore holes in copper walls. Wild, fun new mechanics like body-swapping, teleportation, and gravity manipulation are now part of the toolset, too.

But it's not just the puzzles that have been enhanced this way. In stark contrast to the lonely solitude of the first game, in the sequel you step into the role of the newest member of a robot civilization. You can fully explore the robot city both before the main mission begins, and during an intermission sequence in the middle, and have rich interactions with dozens of your fellow robots - all of which are fully voice-acted. A core team of three other robots is always near you, occasionally radioing over the shared comms to compliment your puzzle-solving abilities or share updates on things they've discovered, and often having new dialogue options available every time you bump into them out in the world (based on progress you've made since the last time you run into them). You can check a social network feed within your own operating system from time to time, to read about how other residents of New Jerusalem are reacting to the discoveries your team makes, and you can choose to post your own responses, which influences the positions some of them will adopt.

I once again loved the philosophical questions it asked. If the first game asked, "What does it mean to be human?" and its DLC asked, "What does it mean to be part of a community?" then this game asks, "As humans, what do we owe each other, our cities, our world, and our universe?" The game very unabashedly presents a pro-technological-progress view, but does allow the player character to persistently disagree with that take if they so choose.

There appear to be three main endings, and the one you get is entirely determined by your answer to one big, very clearly-indicated question at the very end of the game, but there are many small variations in the details of how each ending is presented, and these are determined by many of the smaller choices you made throughout the game up to that point.

I really wanted to get robot-married to Yaqut, but this sadly wasn't possible. Oh well.

I loved this snippet

When you sit in the dunes and you hear only the wind, and nothing else at all, and all the complexities of civilization fade away, you truly understand that spiritual peace is a great evil, a kind of shallow banality that we must always strive against. It is spiritual excitement and enthusiasm which sustain our humanity; spiritual peace is a vile and cowardly surrender to oblivion.

https://kosgames.com/the-talos-principle-2-all-lifthrasir-audio-logs-48222/

Boy, is this game gorgeous. The graphics look good but what really strikes me is the design. I'm constantly in awe at the monumental brutalist structures scattered around the beautiful landscape. I think if they ever release a VR version it will be be forced to buy a new PC powerful enough to play it at full graphics settings.

Boy, is this game smart. While dialogues are not naturalistic, they are so well written. Characters discuss complex problems and have nuanced discussions. I love that you can give a large variety of answers that go far beyond the usual dichotomies of good or bad. You can even honestly respond that you don't know. And without a karma system, there's no penalty in embracing nuance and uncertainty. I keep wanting to transcribe lines since they are so powerful.

Boy, are the puzzles good. Not all are bangers but even the weakest is at least interesting. I love how some you can solve by just stopping, looking at all the pieces and thinking about it for a second; like one that had a number of lasers and receivers and I solved in one go just thinking about the number of colours and the geometry of the lasers.
Some are devious and require you to learn new properties of the tools you use that are logical. Today I solved one that stumped me for like 30 minutes until I got that "aha" moment and then solved it in 5 seconds. I was so happy that I couldn't contain myself and bothered my girlfriend by explaining it to her.

I probably won't finish this game this year, but it's easily one of the best games I played. It might turn out to be my favourite first person puzzle game, even usurping Portal's throne.

After playing the demo I was a bit sceptical about having so many NPC running around. It felt weird to go from the contemplative, lonely and almost melancholic setting of the first game to this almost party-based system. But I have to admit that it works.

Having four characters chatting away at your ear and even interacting with a whole city in a faux social media app is indeed a very change of character, but it fits with the narrative and is executed very well.

This game is less into the melancholy and more into the grandeur. Instead of sad ruined remnants of long-dead civilisations, structures are triumphant monumental buildings looking into the future. The surrounding nature is not a glitchy simulation but a very real place that's full of life. So seeing this group of robots giddily exploring this mysterious place like kids let lose in an amusement park is lovely and their enthusiasm is contagious.

If it hasn't been obvious by my status updates, I'm absolutely loving this game. The puzzles are great, the setting is gorgeous and the writing is as smart if not smarter than the first one's. It's a delight.

After the first game, my expectation were quite high and they still managed to surpass them!

The new puzzle elements are cool, the story and its intertwined philosophy are stellar. I can't wait to see what the final game in the trilogy will, hopefully, be!

I managed to do all of the puzzles on my own, except the last two golden gate ones, as I was impatient to see the ending. But what did help in most puzzles where I was stuck was to question my assumptions about what the solution should look like. I also didn't collect all the stars because I didn't feel like doing it, but I can't wait to see what's behind that gate in a youtube video.

Play this if you liked the first one, if you like puzzle games or if you don't mind puzzles and like a good story :)