When I heard the news that my beloved The Talos Principle 1 will get a sequel, I couldn't wait. I'm 500+ hours in TTP1, built and played lots of community content, the DLC, and personally, I'd value it the best game I've ever played, for me, even above Portal 1/2. Playing the demo of this game left me fascinated and hungry for more. The TTP1-lookalike intro of the game is a perfect pick-up spot for those who have, or have not played the first game. I immediately felt at home.

The graphics are beautiful. I partly get where people come from when they claim that TTP2 looks like a "generic UE5 game", although I fully understand the decisions made to switch to UE5 instead of supporting their previously used in-house "Serious Engine". It's no wonder that, especially with the staff responsible for the engine leaving the team, the old engine is not capable of today's graphics standards. Additionally, porting to newer consoles (like the Xbox Series X/PS5) would've been a nightmare. With UE5 being in the news for Lumen and Nanite though, people have learned the capabilities and the "look" of this engine, and find that in TTP2, making it an "unoriginal" experience. I can't share that opinion.

First things first: I'm not a huge nerd when it comes to the story. I probably forgot 90% of TTP1's story, but it's good that TTP2 does not seem to require that either. Players who haven't played the first game can still find themselves in the story of TTP2 without missing something. I personally like the dialogues, the chats with the different companions around the block, and the story's interesting enough for me to keep going - but not too complex for me to become lost. I've seen people criticize exactly that, and I can imagine the story being a bit flat and one-dimensional for huge story/lore aficionados, but for people like me, it was optimal.

At first, it seems like there is a lot to discover. Next to the city, the world around the megastructure, and the 12 differently themed worlds, holding 8 regular puzzles, a gold puzzle and 2 lost puzzles, present lots of content if you're just starting out. I don't mind the distances between the puzzles in the worlds (as some others reported), I like walking simulators and the photo mode allows me to capture all sorts of beautiful sceneries while I'm on my way to a puzzle. Here comes a bit of criticism though: the puzzles are too easy.

It's either my TTP1 playtime that helps me understand it better, or (and that's more likely) the puzzles are easier than they've been previously. It's actually kind of hard to get that "20 minute for one puzzle" achievement since I've solved most of the puzzles in under five minutes. They all follow the simple structure of you entering a puzzle, almost immediately seeing the current- and the goal-state. The rest is just acquiring the necessary elements, positioning them accordingly, boom. There's little to no challenge in the puzzles, while I remember that TTP1 sometimes had me ~45 minutes in ONE puzzle. I never had to even use one of the prometheus sparks to solve a puzzle, since they weren't that hard.

I also find it a bit disappointing that the "star" puzzles are rather flat and repetitive. You either get a copper-engraved map that somewhat resembles the island, where spots where presumably levers or other elements are marked with an X, a laser receiver you have to power from some other puzzle around the world or a dead-simple spark particle effect you have to chase through the level. Hardly any of these were hard to solve, while in TTP1, stars had an actual weight to them. It was crazy if you could say that you had ~20 stars collected, since a lot of the levels had stars hidden somewhere which actually required you to rethink a whole puzzle. That was great, since it basically allowed you to play a puzzle twice, once for the sigil, once for the star. I miss that here.

What I really love about this game is the thought-out mechanics. Next to the few mechanics we know from the first game (red/blue lasers, pressure plates, switches, cubes, fans) we get a whole new palette of new and exciting stuff, such as a green laser beam + a RGB combinator, inverters, accumulators, drills, activators, the ability to possess other robots in a puzzle, teleporters, and gravity shenanigans. That part truely feels like a "sequel", taking what's worked good from TTP1, thinking it further. I miss the time record/rewind mechanic from TTP1, but I do think the possession feature is a great replacement. BUT: the "new mechanics introduced vs puzzle count" ratio is a bit off. I found that news mechanics are introduced on a much faster pace than I actually have puzzles to solve. I've had maybe 7-8 puzzles utilizing the possession feature in the northern worlds, until that mechanic is gone forever in favour of a new mechanic being introduced. Only a couple of mechanics "survive" throughout the time and stay in the puzzles.

TL;DR: I would've appreciated a higher count of more challenging, more mechanic-intensive puzzles that make more use of the brilliant physics sandbox Croteam offers us. Now, it sadly feels more like amazing mechanics, but too little room to actually put them to use.

I enjoyed it, and I really hope that Croteam is pushing themselves further for a DLC or two, and - a level editor. I'd die to use all these amazing mechanics to create my own puzzles for me and the community to share. I feel like they wanted to create a game that's accessible for everyone, and they've probably done a good job with that, but the mind-boggling challenge TTP1 offered, had to parry for more story elements and less actual use of the great mechanics. Overall, I'd still recommend this to puzzle game fans and I hope there'll be more in the future!

Thanks for reading!

[h3]Beautiful puzzle game with potential for improvement[/h3] When I heard the news that my beloved [b]The Talos Principle 1[/b] will get a sequel, I couldn't wait. I'm 500+ hours in TTP1, built and played lots of community content, the DLC, and personally, I'd value it the best game I've ever played, for me, even above Portal 1/2. Playing the demo of this game left me fascinated and hungry for more. The TTP1-lookalike intro of the game is a perfect pick-up spot for those who have, or have not played the first game. I immediately felt at home. [h1]Graphics[/h1] The graphics are beautiful. I partly get where people come from when they claim that TTP2 looks like a "generic UE5 game", although I fully understand the decisions made to switch to UE5 instead of supporting their previously used in-house "Serious Engine". It's no wonder that, especially with the staff responsible for the engine leaving the team, the old engine is not capable of today's graphics standards. Additionally, porting to newer consoles (like the Xbox Series X/PS5) would've been a nightmare. With UE5 being in the news for Lumen and Nanite though, people have learned the capabilities and the "look" of this engine, and find that in TTP2, making it an "unoriginal" experience. I can't share that opinion. [h1]Story[/h1] First things first: I'm not a huge nerd when it comes to the story. I probably forgot 90% of TTP1's story, but it's good that TTP2 does not seem to require that either. Players who haven't played the first game can still find themselves in the story of TTP2 without missing something. I personally like the dialogues, the chats with the different companions around the block, and the story's interesting enough for me to keep going - but not too complex for me to become lost. I've seen people criticize exactly that, and I can imagine the story being a bit flat and one-dimensional for huge story/lore aficionados, but for people like me, it was optimal. [h1]Game Design (and a bit of criticism)[/h1] At first, it seems like there is a lot to discover. Next to the city, the world around the [spoiler]megastructure[/spoiler], and the 12 differently themed worlds, holding 8 regular puzzles, a gold puzzle and 2 lost puzzles, present lots of content if you're just starting out. I don't mind the distances between the puzzles in the worlds (as some others reported), I like walking simulators and the photo mode allows me to capture all sorts of beautiful sceneries while I'm on my way to a puzzle. Here comes a bit of criticism though: [b]the puzzles are too easy[/b]. It's either my TTP1 playtime that helps me understand it better, or (and that's more likely) the puzzles are easier than they've been previously. It's actually kind of hard to get that "20 minute for one puzzle" achievement since I've solved most of the puzzles in under five minutes. They all follow the simple structure of you entering a puzzle, almost immediately seeing the current- and the goal-state. The rest is just acquiring the necessary elements, positioning them accordingly, boom. There's little to no challenge in the puzzles, while I remember that TTP1 sometimes had me ~45 minutes in ONE puzzle. I never had to even use one of the prometheus sparks to solve a puzzle, since they weren't that hard. I also find it a bit disappointing that the "star" puzzles are rather flat and repetitive. You either get a copper-engraved map that somewhat resembles the island, where spots where presumably levers or other elements are marked with an X, a laser receiver you have to power from some other puzzle around the world or a dead-simple spark particle effect you have to chase through the level. Hardly any of these were hard to solve, while in TTP1, stars had an actual weight to them. It was crazy if you could say that you had ~20 stars collected, since a lot of the levels had stars hidden somewhere which actually required you to rethink a whole puzzle. That was great, since it basically allowed you to play a puzzle twice, once for the sigil, once for the star. I miss that here. What I really love about this game is the thought-out mechanics. Next to the few mechanics we know from the first game (red/blue lasers, pressure plates, switches, cubes, fans) we get a whole new palette of new and exciting stuff, such as [spoiler]a green laser beam + a RGB combinator, inverters, accumulators, drills, activators, the ability to possess other robots in a puzzle, teleporters, and gravity shenanigans[/spoiler]. That part truely feels like a "sequel", taking what's worked good from TTP1, thinking it further. I miss the time record/rewind mechanic from TTP1, but [spoiler]I do think the possession feature[/spoiler] is a great replacement. [b]BUT[/b]: the "new mechanics introduced vs puzzle count" ratio is a bit off. I found that news mechanics are introduced on a much faster pace than I actually have puzzles to solve. I've had maybe 7-8 puzzles utilizing the [spoiler]possession[/spoiler] feature in the northern worlds, until that mechanic is gone forever in favour of a new mechanic being introduced. Only a couple of mechanics "survive" throughout the time and stay in the puzzles. [b]TL;DR[/b]: I would've appreciated a higher count of more challenging, more mechanic-intensive puzzles that make more use of the brilliant physics sandbox Croteam offers us. Now, it sadly feels more like amazing mechanics, but too little room to actually put them to use. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] I enjoyed it, and I really hope that Croteam is pushing themselves further for a DLC or two, and - a level editor. I'd die to use all these amazing mechanics to create my own puzzles for me and the community to share. I feel like they wanted to create a game that's accessible for everyone, and they've probably done a good job with that, but the mind-boggling challenge TTP1 offered, had to parry for more story elements and less actual use of the great mechanics. Overall, I'd still recommend this to puzzle game fans and I hope there'll be more in the future! Thanks for reading!