Isolation makes for one hell of a freak experience. A cool one too, one that ‘The Talos Principle: Reawakened’ maintains as developer Croteam and publisher Devolver Digital remaster one of their finest puzzler in Unreal Engine 5. I’ll admit, I wasn’t expecting to do a replay of The Talos Principle anytime soon—not that I don’t want to wrack my brain any harder than I have to, but because I want to emphasise how spooky I find the original game to be. ‘The Talos Principle II‘ holds nothing over the strange, isolating experience that players will find themselves in as they solve puzzles and learn more about the world they find themselves in. As in, why are there lands of ancient Greek, Egypt, and the Middle Ages just faffing about while a monstrous tower watches over all, rapture clouds et al.
And as this game is a remaster, I’m inclined to simply compare the “changes” made between the original Serious Engine-based release and this one. I’m in a tough spot: talking about the game in any meaningful way may spoil the story and world significance (same if I were to delve into the sequel). Since I have no creative bone in my body to dance around potential spoilers (as of this writing anyway), I will simply put forth my thoughts on this remaster below, followed by a picture of a cat, and then my analysis of The Talos Principle: Reawakened thereafter.
The Talos Principle: Reawakened is a grande remaster that contains nearly everything from the original 2014 release and adds a new, fun campaign for those seeking more challenges and lore. The visuals have seen a gorgeous overhaul that may not be obvious at first thanks to how well the original release holds up. For consoles, especially Xbox, this version of the game feels far playable than its original release way back when. This is a fantastic puzzler and should be played by everyone, feebleminded and apparent geniuses. ∎
‘The Talos Principle: Reawakened’ is a great game, but in my eyes, has been greatly surpassed by its sequel. An extremely rare occurrence, mind you, as I usually nostalgia drool over old things every single time without fail. But let that not take away what makes The Talos Principle great: its puzzles are arguably far more difficult and its environmental storytelling slash worldbuilding are unique in the fact that its developer had pieced together various bits of ancient history and ‘Serious Sam 3’ assets to fashion an unsettling world. And when I returned to this game, I felt that dread return in spite of the serene landscapes that stood before me. Something just isn’t right, and that’s what makes The Talos Principle incredibly unique.
One of the first obvious changes in Reawakened is the game’s visuals. It still maintains that eerie vibe of the original while using far higher quality assets and lighting. Oh my, the lighting is something to behold. I’ve always thought the original game looked beautiful, even now, but as I loaded up my Steam version and looked side-by-side I was blown away by just how much nicer this game looks. I mean, see for yourself:
We have new assets across the board in all major levels. Lighting has significantly improved to a point where depth for distance lands and interior objects are simply unparalleled. My favourite in particular is the Egypt world as, besides Croteam’s apparent experience with crafting beautiful sandy levels, the texture work, heat effects, and overcast lighting across many stages bring players far closer to what an actual day in Egypt would look like as opposed to the now cartoonish look of the original game. On top of all this, I’m playing the game on the Xbox Series X and S, and it runs pretty well across both platforms! The original release was ported way later than its PlayStation 4 contemporary and doesn’t run this well on top of screen tearing and a far lower resolution. This is truly the best way to play The Talos Principle, by far. Damjan Mravunac’s compositions for this game continue to shine as well, offering serenity before striking you with heavy emotional turmoil through haunting tracks like “Virgo Serena”.
Gameplay has remained unchanged as well, a feat as I was worried that some aspects, like physics, would not work as expected in Reawakened. Good news then: just about everything I did largely behaved the same way as the original release, trick jumps and a bit of cheesing aside. Some aspects of The Talos Principle II have made their way here as well, but the best thing this remaster has brought to the table is the fact that the blasted recording mechanic now has a pause button. When players need to use this mechanic to advance, rather than wait around and waste precious time, you can instead pause the recording at various intervals so that you can not only end your recordings faster but also gives you flexibility in certain puzzles that wouldn’t have been available otherwise in the original release.
Now not everything survived the transition to Reawakened. Weather effects in a level or two are no longer present, the audio subsystem used in this version of the game lacks the powerful bass and emphasised sound effects that, besides being a signature Serious Engine feature, make finding computer terminals a bit more difficult. Some collectibles, like key rings, no longer flash purple, making them more difficult to see. This is especially annoying here as this remaster has brought about greater foliage density and darker areas.
Mind, I don’t think this impacts the experience in any significant way, but it pays to be mindful of the changes. That, and I’m a stickler for the little things.
Now if you’re not already aware of what kind of game The Talos Principle is (I assume you do since you’v read this far but…), it’s a 3D puzzle game that puts emphasis on angles and thinking outside the box. Not just thinking in puzzles, but the philosophical kinds as well—Who are you? What is this place? What are you? As players drift from puzzle to puzzle while a greater voice by the name of Elohim (a whole lot of winks and nudges) guides them, they’ll come across ancient human works fictious and the opposite, hopefully making the player question the world they walk both virtually and physically.
The puzzles are fun! Your goal is to collect the sigils located within a given stage and, if you really want to test yourself, collect the stars that are fashioned in some incomprehensible location of the map. Across the game’s three worlds, the first two will largely teach you the fundamentals of the game and the mechanics you unlock, while the third area will really push your ability to think with boxes, rays of light, and the dreaded recording function. Not a fan of the last one, but its functions create a huge number of possibilities for a puzzle to be completed—I have nothing but admiration for it.
The Talos Principle has some serious brain teasers, some asking players to stretch the figments of their imagination while others will be outright tests of your understanding of how the game’s code behaves. Angling is your best friend here—keep an open mind and you’ll be successful. That and remember, sometimes a puzzle is best solved in the fewest steps possible: not everything needs to be used. Now not every puzzle is a winner, there are a couple of stinkers. Personally, looking back at my original playthrough and this one, I was never a fan of the “antagonists” AKA the floating bombs and deadly turrets. Some puzzles become more of a test of your reflexes rather than mechanics, which is a shame and I’m grateful that the sequel had done away with this sort of gameplay.
Mind, if you do die to these annoyances, you can always rewind! This is a new feature (don’t remember if this was in the sequel and it’s 100GB too big for me to download and check) that lets you rewind all the way back to the beginning of a puzzle. Perfect if you somehow mess up an execution.
While you’re collecting these sigils, you’ll run into plenty of random bits of texts, chat logs, emails, you name it. These works are what you’ll primarily run into as worldbuilding, giving you an insight of what came before your weird robotic arms and legs have. But they also contain works that ask about stability, ruin, and the life hereafter. Words about the journey Osiris made and why the common man must walk the same, passages on what gives the right for one man to lay dominion and claim warfare over the other, struggles over why God would let such tragedy strike the kindest of people.
I’ll admit, The Talos Principle came into my life at the perfect time 10 or so years ago. I was enrolled in college and I was taking a philosophy class for my major. Were it not for this game, I would have not taken that class as seriously as I did. I’ve always enjoyed reading books, but I’ve been more of a fantasy reader than a thinker. I could live in my head in the greatest, coolest universes known to man and yet I found myself struggling to contemplate some of the very issues (with apostrophe and without) that impact my existence and the people that walk about around me. This is a game that will introduce you to excerpts from real works, highlighting the struggles of man spiritually and mechanically. Fictional works written by the game’s writers also permeate the game, giving players basic fundamentals of morality and later, challenges that can be pitted against reality.
I love The Talos Principle for these highlights alone. And not only does the game do a fantastic job giving character to those who aren’t even there to represent themselves, but hearing the tragedies that befall humanity slowly approach is a sad and terrifying event that unfortunately could parallel real-world events. Plus, the true end is not just something to be done for completion, but is part of the player’s act of defiance against the only other disembodied voice that speaks to them as if they were God. It’s really cool how well the finale is put together, not just its level but how the narrative plays out as the player approaches the end and decides what’s best for them based on everything they’ve learned up to this point.
But there is one aspect that I realised comes off in poor taste, unintentionally mind you: the serpent in the computer.
The Talos Principle borrows lots from human lore, some rather blatantly like a character from the “forbidden fruit”. Across the main campaign’s world, there are various terminals that host a “snake”, a curious doubter that will begin asking the player innocuous questions about themselves before taking every chance they can to sow doubt and the desire to give up on completing Elohim’s challenges within the player. Not that the player would ever give up continuing the game over a snarky “intelligent” computer programme, mind, but it tries its best to do so anyway. Nothing the player says will ever be enough for it, which will eventually annoy even the most saint-like of us, leading to sarcastic back ‘n forths until you finally land a gotcha! moment and shut the damn thing up.
That gotcha resonated with me when I was younger and it’s arguably one of the best memories I have with the game. I won semantics with a computer programme! But upon replaying Reawakened, many years passing us and all, I’ve come to realise that this exchange likely wasn’t getting the intended message across. It creates a hostile environment in which the player spends more time on the “defensive” rather than actually discussing the finer details of life and morality. The conversations are short, sporadically spread about and devolve into slapstick matches, likely making the player lose interest in actually trying to learn something and more so trying to find “flaws” in a given statement.
While I understand that the writers were trying to introduce a cynic to the conversation (and boy have we all been subject to those these last few years, ey?), I think this would have been time better spent having back-to-back conversations that question the player’s morality and beliefs as well as the computer’s. Especially since this thing is basically the only thing that will respond to the player in any capacity, rather than being creepy decorations based on history. I was half expecting this snake to bring up the dreaded “Trolley Problem” so I could proceed to repeatedly bash my head into a wall.
I’d like to point out that The Talos Principle II does a far better job of questioning a player’s beliefs than The Talos Principle: Reawakened. Even if the individuals in question from the former may be too quick to agree at times, that’s also because there are fundamentals that are morally correct, no matter what a la “all living being deserve to live a life of security, peace, and comfort”. Argue against that and you’ll just come across as an opportunist, an awful person, and/or an idiot.
Ultimately, The Talos Principle: Reawakened is a fantastic remaster of an already great game. The other two campaigns, “Road to Gehenna” and the new “In the Beginning”, offer additional puzzles that will really wrack your brain on top of being able to hear more from Elohim’s architect and the mother of all that came after. I didn’t see options to play the Prototype stuffs that were available in the original game, nor did I see the Serious Sam voice over option for Elohim, which disappointed me a bit. But I think the real stinger for console players is the fact that the “Puzzle Maker” feature will only be available on PC. If you want to play community-made puzzles and make your own, it might be best to grab this game on Steam. Be it your first time or as a returnee, you won’t regret it.
P.S. There’s one jump scare in this game. It spooked me ten years ago and it spooked me again ten years later. To whoever put that in the game, know that you’ve made me a very sad person.
The Talos Principle: Reawakened
Played on
Xbox Series X/S
PROS
- Gorgeous visual upgrade.
- Introduction of ethical and moral quandaries that are easy to understand but truly require time to contemplate them in full.
- Phenomenal music.
- Plenty of content across three campaigns.
- Fun puzzle mechanics.
CONS
- Not every puzzle is a winner.
- No puzzle editor for consoles.
- The serpent could have been handled better.
