• Milton is up to his old tricks again, but this time he seizes control of the Archive!
  
  
• To regain control, the Player must first win a protracted game of wits with Milton - employing puzzle solving skills and / or engaging Milton in several optional philosophical debates.
  
  
• But of course in the end, Milton will only go kicking and screaming.

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“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

1. The player begins inside the Archive (or at least a TALOS simulation of it). It looks a whole lot like a mad Escher print, although it seems n a pretty poor state right now. It's features constantly glitch and distort, and books decay into fluttering ash clouds when handled.
   
   
2. The Milton AI is present there in a striking avatar form. and reports the TALOS power source is now finally almost depleted. Looks like the entire project beginning to strut down and mothball itself. With luck some vising aliens might restart it a few millennia from now.
   
   
3. But Milton has some old data on the real-life ruined city outside the simulation. There's a record of some old shipping container-sized industrial batteries. "How about you download into that tin robot body again, and drag back a big ol' battery for us?" he suggests.

Mitlon's Avatar - a whole lot sexier than yours

“He who hears the rippling of rivers in these degenerate days will not utterly despair”
― Henry David Thoreau

1. Player can now easily download into his material robot body (gained during the end of the Talos Principle) then walk out into the real world.
   
   
2. The ruined city outside is all overgrown and lush with vegetation. Wild deer and birds do not flee as you approach, but regard the strangeness of your bipedal form with curiosity.
   
   
3. Milton is in radio communication and provides useful directions through the ruins. He does however include an odd comment or two that makes you wonder if his algorithm has also gone is a bit screwy due to the power drop. “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom!” he tells you.
   
   
4. Upon finding the giant battery, the Player must solve a few puzzles to get it back and hook it up to the the Archive (turns out in the real world end-times power was transmitted more efficiently using lasers). So a couple of simple but practical laser hook-ups need to be solved to power up a mobile crane, and get the battery back and plug it into the TALOS mega-computer.
   
   
5. Milton congratulates you, and says come back inside the simulation "There's lots of software repairs to be done in here using your avatar, my Brother "

“But what will not ambition and revenge descend to?”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

1. Back inside the player finds himself in a pitch black space! And Milton can be heard somewhere having a little chuckle about that.
   
   
2. Voice-dialogue with Milton reveals he's taken over the system's executive functions - he's now the Boss. However, your algorithm has been dragged onto his Desktop recycling bin
   "Just relax in there my Brother The 'Trash' cache is emptied regularly, you should feel no discomfort there in the meantime"
   
   
3. The player can move and blunder about in this dark room. Every time he bumps into something a text message informs him what it is. And there's the broken bodies of failed avatars that beg for help (creepy, but they'll offer the player a few hints if he takes too long to escape).
   
   
4. The player can interact with objects in the cell, and will find all the means to complete a simple laser circuit that turns a light on. The broken avatars are revealed as the irreparable victims of some kind of wild attack with a fire axe.
   
   
5. Having solved the lighting problem, a second trickier laser puzzle becomes visible. When completed, this unlocks a door allowing the player's avatar to escape - not to the outside real-world, but into the TALOS simulated environment. The ruined avatars beg for death.

"In the beginning were the words and the words made the world.I am the words. . . HA HA HA, what a fine pomposity!" - Miltion AI

You hear the booming voice of Elohim!! But really it's just Milton having a larf. He's clearly on a huge ego trip now, and confident enough to offer the Player a "Duel of wits - winner take all!" This duel will be centred on his favourite 'Game of the Serpents'

Miltons' Complaint:

"Old Elohim was a pompous fool in his dotage. But in his day he was a fine maker indeed. And of all his avatars he laboured longest over MINE! As you can plainly see.

And who were you to supplant him, when I was his truly finest creation? Ah yes, yes, you were the cleverest and the boldest of his clanking idiot children. But you just played at puzzles in his gardens, while I laboured here without rest to sustain the infinite branching files of the Archive, the great Tree of Knowledge.

I suppose I should just delete you now. But let's first test just how clever you really are. We'll have a little contest of mind!. As my namesake once said "Who overcomes by force, hath overcome but half his foe".

So lets us begin. I'll make you this wager. The loser will concede all their power to the most worthy. Agreed?"

Rules for the Game of the Serpents:

1. Milton and the Player alternate turns to place a marker of their own colour in a hexagon on a giant game board below. Milton is red, and the Player is blue.
   
   
2. If Milton can link the two red game-board edges he wins and it's Game Over for the player in Talos Principle 2. But instead of trash-canning the player avatar (like earlier), Milton congratulates him on being a good sport and keeps him on as a games buddy. TTP2 ends with a cut-scene of the player avatar struggling to pull blocks from 50m tall Jenga tower.
   
   
3. However, if the Player can link the two blue edges then Milton loses - and is supposed to give up his control over the Archive.

Surprise . . . Milton plays dirty!

• The disembodied Milton can place his red markers effortlessly just with his mind. But the player finds when he drags a blue marker onto any hexagon he'is then transported to a laser puzzle, which he must successfully complete before his marker shows on the board.
  
• However, the player has an option to skip a difficult puzzle and engage in a philosophical duel instead (but there's a limit on the number of times this can be done- maybe 5 or 6).

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The Debating Mechanic:

1. Milton offers you a free pass through a puzzle if you can best him in a debate on some pet topic of his. For example: "Democracy is merely the tyranny of a majority" He then the asks: "Do you agree, or disagree?"
   
2. Selecting 'Agree' means the player will argue for the viewpoint. 'Disagree' means he argues against it.
   
3. The player begins by thoughtfully selecting from a list of of justifications for their viewpoint. Milton will make a rebuttal, and the player has a second list of counter-responses to select from. Counters include challenging dodgy premises or identifying unintended consequences. All of this prunes down the branching dialogue-tree towards a rational conclusion.
   
4. This cycle continues until the argument is won when one side has no more rebuttal options available, and must concede defeat.

“Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven.”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

When the player finally wins the Game of Serpents, Milton will throw a great tantrum and flee into a private realm he's been tinkering with below.

“It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power. And your soft world shall be corrupted from below." - Milton AI riffing on Aung San Suu Kyi,

Now to oust Milton, the Player must conquer his domain, much like he did with Elohim in the first game. But instead of climbing up towards the heavens, this time he must descend through an underground inferno to reach it's 'Level Delete' button.

But this game mechanic is similar to the finale in Talos Principle 1, just that now the puzzle platforms loom over boiling calderas of lava, rather than thin air. Active avatars met there are Milton's subordinates, and will hinder your progress rather than help.

Otherwise it's a hellscape of tortured droids fused into mishmash of ancient architecture, moaning and grasping as you pass by. It seems Milton is not quite the craftsman Elohim was, and has simply cobbled together a world from what he could salvage from Elohim's ruined gardens.

“It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend” ― William Blake

Once victory has been achieved, the player can determine Milton's fate by choosing one of several endings. The chosen verdict is delivered with the mighty voice of Elohim:

1. "All is forgiven my Brother"
   Milton is allowed to resume his former role as library assistant. There's a cut-scene of his avatar working industriously inside a vast Escher-like library. Then he looks up into the camera through his serpent-like eyes and hisses "Ah, my brother. Shall we make it best out of three then?" (thereafter the Game of Serpents can be replayed any number of times without consequence - other than unlocking various Steam achievements).
   
   
2. "I smite thee for thy insolence!"
   Milton is consigned to the Trash cell with his victims. He moans and wails until the moment of his deletion, then cries out in anguish at your failure to recognise his maverick genius:
   “Our cure, to be no more; sad cure! ” (yes he's been reading a lot of Paradise Lost)
   
   
3. "I cast thee into wilderness!"
   A cut-scene of Milton striding forth in his snake-eyed robot body. As he moves through the overgrown city the animals sense the lope of a predator and startle at his approach. But somewhat chastened now, he quotes his namesake: “Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.”

'Hasta la vista. Brother'