I missed the original release of The Talos Principle somehow (I love a good puzzle game). I made sure to rectify that mistake with the release of The Talos Principle 2, and found it to be a great puzzle title with clever mechanics albeit a little bloated with extra curricular stuff. So this remastering of the original in The Talos Principle: Reawakened was instantly installed when it passed through my inbox recently, and I’ve been having a great time getting lost in all manner of fiendish puzzles all over again.
Puzzles are the bread and butter of The Talos Principle: Reawakened, and Croteam has cooked up some absolutely brilliant tests of our grey matter. Even early on it can be surprising how intricate the challenge can be, with plenty of head scratching going on.
The Talos Principle: Reawakened places us in small open levels, each with several ‘rooms’ that contain their own puzzle. Each of these are signposted, and the signpost is crossed out once we complete a puzzle, so it’s easy to keep track of what is left to do in a level.
The puzzles themselves are a great mixture of styles and elements; one might see us using coloured lasers only, another boxes and fans, and further on a mixture of all of the above (and even more later on). Solutions range from fairly straightforward (get one red laser to a door to open it) to far, far more complex, with all manner of backtracking, object manipulation, and tricky set-ups to get to the puzzles completion.
It’s incredibly satisfying to solve a series of rooms in a row. Again, Croteam have pitched a great procession of levels in terms of upping the ante, introducing a mechanic before expanding upon it with ever more difficult and intricate solutions. Early on I found several that had me scratching my head, and thankfully it’s possible to dip out, do a few others and come back (and in typical fashion, it was then solved on the first try – sometimes you just need a breather).
Successively clearing puzzles grants us more keys which then are slotted together (in an almost Tetris-like grid) to open up further areas in the game or unlock new puzzle components. These puzzles can be tricky as well, but the game does at least let us know if we have all the required pieces to complete it first.
There’s a pretty hefty lore in The Talos Principle: Reawakened too, with some strong religious and creationism leanings. If I’m totally honest I wasn’t all that interested in keeping up with it, though there’s plenty there to read and listen to if it catches your interest. I found myself just itching to get back to the puzzling.
Included in this package is DLC Road to Gehenna, offering up several more hours of puzzling action, but the biggest draw for returning players will be the new chapter The Beginning. It’s recommended to have completed the main game before starting this and I can see why – the puzzles are instantly incredibly tough, and there are also plenty of story spoilers too to be wary of. It’s a pretty excellent addition to the main game and previous DLC, really pushing us to put what we’ve learnt before now to the test. I found myself stuck on a puzzle for a good half hour, and though the estimated runtime is about five hours this is going to be much longer for me I think…
Rounding off the pack are the upspuffed visuals, remastered in UE5 to stunning effect. It is seriously a great looking game, and while there’s not much to be found by exploring the areas outside of the puzzle rooms, sometimes all we need is a nice view to take our mind of the stress for a minute before heading back in.
Perhaps my only real criticism of The Talos Principle: Reawakened is that it can at times be incredibly tough, and there’s not (to the best of my knowledge) any sort of hint system. I did complete an optional trial that granted me three tokens that I thought were hint I could call upon but I haven’t seen a way to use them in the game yet. Though even then, I feel like I’ll need a lot more than three hints at a time to get through some of the trickier levels and not just having an optional hint by default is a little bit of a shame.
Conclusion
All in all though, I’ve really enjoyed my time with The Talos Principle: Reawakened. The puzzle mechanics are smartly designed and put to use in some truly ingenious scenarios that test our logic and ability to plan ahead and think outside the box. The new chapter is a worthy challenge for returning players, and bundling that in with the base game and DLC is pretty damn good value.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox S|X review code, using an Xbox S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
