I haven't been very active on FA in quite a while; small things here and there but nothing too major. Rarely, when I play or watch something that has a profound moment or idea, I come here to reflect and to talk out the jumble of information that is knocking around in my head. AKA = TL;DR Warning with kinda-spoilers.

About a year ago, I caught a glimpse of a video game coming out through Steam called The Talos Principle (TTP). I had no idea what the game was about but the promo video made me want to play it.

Visually, without even touching the game it looked stunning. The visuals of the environment are stunning. Croteam, TTP’s developer, may not have been using state of the art physics engines to handle precise real time physics, but the light engine used rendering rays and shadow casts while handling multiple light sources is brilliant. Depth of field isn’t present but the perpetual distant haze giving the feel of a real environment gives a great feel of size of the world. Everything from ‘useless areas’ to major set-pieces are textured and shaped to a degree that even some big name companies just don’t take care of.

Music composition is wonderful even if it might be slightly repetitive when working on some of the individual puzzles. While the music is not situational, it feels like it is effected as you progress. Music keyed in certain ways changes the way you view the environment. Faster the tempo of the music, the flow of the game feels even when the task requires you to move slow or be patient.

Game sounds… could have used a little more work as the 3D environment didn’t seem to lend any deflection or echo and some moving items that changed shape were always at the same volume regardless if they were several walls away. A little bit of tweaking with the way the sounds emit could change it BUT in some cases the audio changing would make some of the puzzles impossible.

The puzzles… Oh, hell the puzzles. Complex and yet simple in most aspects, all of them linear or multi-tiered are hard; even when so simple. Some puzzles that were massively complicated were straight forward while the smaller ones with only two or three moving/movable parts took 45mins to an hour to figure out. Some puzzles, without a little bit of primer were nearly impossible unless you discovered something by accident.

The Talos Principle is an emotional look into a bright world with only one way to move through it: to progress. While over-narration tells you, “You can stay for eternity, I don’t mind” while presenting you with puzzles pieces of information that compel you to look further for more information. “Easter Eggs” and computer terminals dropping information for you to read through giving reason for the world to exist, all while the booming voice from the sky says eternity awaits and a small voice from the other side of the screen says ‘Why not question...’

Look, this game is so good, I don’t even want to get into any details about it because it changes how the playthrough would feel. If you want to play it, don’t go into it knowing anything about the game or its timeline. Knowing anything about it will change your perception of the games world. The best way to play this game is to approach it the same way your character does inside the game: start only knowing that you exist and have a world to explore full of mystery, challenges forcing or coaxing you to progress towards eternity and salvation of your kind.


There’s a lot more I’d like to say about this game, but saying anything more will disrupt the experience if you haven’t played it yet. Just know that the game, once completed, leaves you sad and fulfilled and knowing that if you had to do it all over again, you would.