Puzzle games have a special place in my heart after growing up on games like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and Portal. I know the first two aren’t exactly considered puzzle games, but there are definitely puzzle elements, and Portal speaks for itself. The latter is very plainly a big influence when it comes to The Talos Principle 2, and the team at Croteam has created a big epic world for the player to explore and get their puzzle on.
The Talos Principle 2 starts off in what appears to be a dream, and we’ve got to solve a few puzzles to ‘wake up’. Waking up is, in fact, how we are ‘born’, born being the most appropriate way one could describe a robot’s assembly completing. We take on the role of the robot named “1k”, named so for being the 1000th and last robot built in this civilization.
We are tasked with going around to determine our place in the world after the extinction of the human race, lovingly called The Ancestors. There are heavy philosophical undertones found in The Talos Principle 2, chiefly centred on life and one’s place in the universe.
The environments are huge and beautifully designed. There are multiple biomes at play here, and each one looks incredible. From the grasslands to the mountains, the environments are gorgeous to look at. Sure, there aren’t a lot of obstacles to jump over, and the path to each puzzle could be considered a little linear. It’s still like going on a nature walk to your destination, and I am not going to complain about it.
“Not much has changed from The Talos Principle in terms of how the puzzles are solved.”
I hope you brought your thinking brain to The Talos Principle 2 because these puzzles can be quite difficult, with some being downright diabolical. I consider myself to be a fairly logical thinker and good at puzzles, but I was humbled much quicker than I expected. There are no hints, no shortcuts, and no descriptions for any of the puzzles, save for the name of the puzzle itself. The name of the puzzle gives you some notion of how to complete the puzzle, but with no contextual clues, you’re left to your own devices to solve it.
Thankfully, if you are struggling with a particular puzzle, you can simply leave it and come back later. Each area in the world map has eight puzzles, along with a couple of extra, non-mandatory puzzles that can be counted towards the progression of the area. You only need to complete four of the eight puzzles in a given area to open up the next area, so if story progression is your goal, then finding the four easiest in the group to complete is the way forward.
“I hope you brought your thinking brain to The Talos Principle 2 because these puzzles can be quite difficult, with some being downright diabolical.”
Not much has changed from The Talos Principle in terms of how the puzzles are solved. Each puzzle in the main world requires you to open up a gate to a stone pedestal that houses a relic of the past. That gate can be opened a number of ways, but the most common is going to be by directing a specific laser beam into a receptacle, which opens it up. How you get that laser there is the real challenge, as a lot of rooms give you next to no tools to begin with. It’s up to you and your wits and imagination to figure out how to get in.
During my time with The Talos Principle 2, I never experienced something that I couldn’t solve by dutifully figuring out what has to go where and what colour lasers can be made at any given time, etc. Sure, there were a few puzzles that have stumped me even as I write this, but I remain confident that they can and will be solved because I fully intend to complete as much of this game as my brain will possibly allow me to.
Like Portal, I cannot put this game down. The sense of accomplishment that I get when I finally solve something that has been troubling me for the last two hours is hard to match. The Talos Principle 2 will be available for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on November 2nd, 2023, and I cannot wait to continue this journey.
