Croteam pretty much surprised everyone with this DLC to The Talos Principle 2. There was no prior announcement (none that I'm aware of anyway), no advertisement, it just dropped out of the blue around halfway through June. To say I was excited would be an understatement. Over the years, for various reasons, the two Talos Principle games have more or less become my favorite games of all time, so I was more than up for this. And when I saw that the product page explicitly describes part 3 of of the DLC, Into the Abyss, as having "extremely difficult puzzles"? Well, sign me the fuck up. You know how some people are a masochist for combat, with their hard-as-nails soulslikes? That's me with puzzles! And the puzzles did not disappoint. More on that later.

So, this DLC is divided into 3 completely separate campaigns. When I added up my save file hours from the three, it came out to around 29 hours. Not bad for a $20 DLC. There's quite a bit of content here, especially if you're intent on solving everything (and why wouldn't you be? it's the point of the game!)

Chapter 1 of the DLC, Orpheus Ascending, centers on the character Sarabhai, a minor a character mentioned in the base game. I wouldn't blame anyone for having little memory of who she is. The DLC mostly gives you a refresher on what you need to know, anyway. The text bits and audiologs mostly involve her recounting her personal experiences regarding love and relationships during her time with Hypatia, as well as the difficulties and growing she needed to do as a part of that. There's a lot of musings on her own experience of love but also just love in general, and between this and Chapter 2, it can be a tiny bit cringe at times. Not that love stories are inherently cringe, but some of it can be a bit too on the nose. It's not that big a deal to me and I liked it overall; someone who's a bit more critical might have complaints. But then, if you already played through The Talos Principle 2 and bought the DLC, you probably already know what you're in for in terms of writing (I don't mean this as strictly a negative thing!)

The puzzles here mostly center around lasers, and there are some genuinely really cool ones, such as Switchboard:

A fair amount of puzzles center around the idea of laser power (i.e. the fewer connections a laser has made from its source emitter, the stronger it is). I don't think it's a new concept, but it was never used in the base game. It's great to see they've always got new ideas to work with here in terms of puzzle design.

Chapter 2, Isle of the Blessed, is likely to be the highlight for most people. It's the section that feels that most like the base game. There's a big environment to wander around in and lots of other characters to talk to. Sphinx riddles are back. There are 3 colored areas of puzzles to solve which light up towers and the whole thing is modeled (quite explicitly) on the expedition from the base game. Except, where the original story was serious and had real stakes to it, this is like the bonus/extras episode where you get to see the light and silly bits that they couldn't put in the main story. And hey, it fits. Our characters went through a lot and managed to solve the major conflict; now they get to unwind and relax! There's a pretty funny bit of dialogue poking fun at 1k being a silent protagonist in the base game:

Al: By the way, 1k, I'm glad you've picked a voicepack. It's nice to hear you actually speaking.

1k: Well, Neith didn't mention the voicepacks, and I didn't realize I could've just picked one. It's not like I wanted to spend the entire expedition in text mode!

Yaqut: I told you guys it wasn't intentional!

Melville: We thought it was a statement or something.

There's a huge tilted cube structure known as the Hexahedron that unlocks once you've solved all the main puzzles, and it's basically a single area with a whole series of minor puzzles with checkpoints so you don't have to reset the entire thing if you mess up a bit. Many of the puzzles are more about observation and exploration than logic, so it feels more like a theme park exhibit than a puzzle, but it's just really neat all around. Lots of fun. Also, the environments here are gorgeous.

Chapter 3 of the DLC, Into the Abyss, centers around Byron and his time locked inside the machine in the base game, as well as Athena's internal struggles. The tone is darker here, story-wise, and the puzzles are very difficult by comparison with anything in the base game. There are quite a few that are far harder than Small Space Big Solution, which I consider to be the hardest puzzle in the Talos 1 DLC.

Because the puzzles are meant to be especially hard, you're only required to complete 8 of the 24 puzzles in order to unlock the main ending. However, there's an additional ending that unlocks if you complete them all. The puzzles build on a number of advanced concepts from earlier Talos content, like intentionally cutting off a laser beam with another laser in order to clear a path for a third laser to get through, neutralizing a connector by connecting multiple colors to it, blocking off lasers with physical objects, there are non-laser puzzles with complex bits of sequencing you'll need to work out.

Though the focus is on the puzzles being hard, none of them feel unfair and the concepts involved in each one are unique. No finnicky or unstable solutions are required; there is a stable, elegant solution to each puzzle, and many have multiple solutions. Most of them also have a natural progression that allows you to work up to the full solution from a starting idea, or that progression is built on concepts learned from earlier puzzles in Into the Abyss. Beautifully designed and tested puzzles.

I had a fantastic time, and if you played and enjoyed the base game, then you'll love this as well. And if you haven't played it? It's amazing, what are you waiting for?