An amazing puzzle sport could make you’re feeling like a genius. Style classics like Portal hinge on the immense satisfaction that comes from cracking an advanced answer. That may be a difficult puzzle in itself, as builders should be cautious to not make challenges so obtuse that they ship gamers trying to find guides after an excessive amount of head-scratching. Video games that pull it off, nevertheless, depart gamers a particular form of mental prize that’s extra rewarding than a digital trophy.
That was the guiding philosophy in 2014’s standout The Talos Precept, and it appears to hold by to its sequel. After taking part in a large chunk of the upcoming puzzle-adventure sport (5 hours; roughly 1 / 4 of the ultimate sport), The Talos Precept 2 is already shaping as much as be a worthy successor. Not solely does it have a bigger scope with far more philosophical waxing, nevertheless it doubles down on its predecessor’s inventively designed puzzles too — I already really feel like a mad genius.
Deliver on the puzzles
In its opening moments, The Talos Precept 2 appears precisely the identical as its predecessor. I’m dropped right into a desert and despatched into puzzle chambers, the place I jam digital doorways and place containers on switches. Finishing a puzzle provides me a tetromino piece that I slot into doorways to unlock new areas. That’s solely a cheeky tutorial, although. I’m rapidly pulled out of a simulation machine to find I’m a robotic residing in a futuristic society populated by clever machines.
Whereas the primary sport was a lonely expertise that relied on lore logs to weave its background story, the sequel places narrative within the forefront. I spend a chapter merely strolling across the hub metropolis chatting with robots and studying about their society. I even get entry to a social media web site crammed with philosophical conversations between bots (if the primary sport’s heady chatter turned you off, be warned that the sequel cranks it up much more). When a celebration to rejoice town’s 1000th robotic goes awry, I’m shipped off on an expedition to research a mysterious pyramid. To get inside, I’ll must activate a sequence of towers in numerous areas.
And naturally, meaning fixing a number of puzzles.
The final construction is kind of the identical as the unique from there, although a bit extra open-ended. Once I journey to an space, I’m free to discover and deal with puzzle chambers in any order I select. If I wander away the overwhelmed path, I’ll even uncover some bonus puzzles, hidden lore logs, environmental secrets and techniques, and collectible flames that’ll let me bypass puzzles (that’s particularly helpful contemplating there are not any hints to be discovered). Finishing eight puzzles permits me to unlock the trail to a tower, the place I want to position tetromino items to construct a bridge. It’s a intelligent little twist on the unique’s defining function.
Puzzle chambers are acquainted at first. I’m usually making an attempt to get a beam of sunshine to an identical lock through the use of machines to mirror mild over to them. I’m launched to a few new machines throughout my playthrough that construct on that concept. Within the first space, I’m working with a brand new machine that attaches to 2 totally different coloured beams and combines them to create a brand new one. Hooking it as much as a blue and purple beam creates a inexperienced one, as an illustration. Naturally, that creates some advanced puzzles the deeper I am going as I connect splitters to different splitters to direct lights round partitions.
The sequel riffs on that additional with inverters, which outputs the alternative shade of no matter it’s connected to (hooking it as much as a blue beam produces a purple one). One significantly tough puzzle has me putting an inverter on a field on prime of a fan, unlocking a far-off door with an inverted mild stream, after which discovering a method to direct each a blue and purple beam inside. Options usually contain a number of beams of sunshine capturing round chambers in all instructions.
The demo additionally introduces a extra mind-bending software that brings a little bit of Portal aptitude: drillers. These gadgets can open up a portal on particular surfaces, permitting me to maneuver gadgets or mild by them. My favourite puzzle in the entire demo has me drilling a gap in a excessive wall and discovering a method to get a converter excessive sufficient to achieve it. Placing a converter on a fan looks like the straightforward reply, however first I’ve to make use of the driller to juggle gadgets out and in of a room closed off with a strain plate.
What The Talos Precept 2 does particularly effectively thus far is current puzzles that appear bodily inconceivable to resolve at first look. There have been loads of rooms the place I felt like a child making an attempt to grasp a magic trick. In virtually each a type of circumstances, although, I used to be capable of string collectively an answer that left me feeling like a magician myself. I’d solely discover myself dishonest twice, as I found two rooms by which I may hop on the partitions of the chamber to get to the top room. I’m undecided if that’s an intentional resolution or not, nevertheless it did depart me feeling a little bit dissatisfied in myself.
That’s solely a style of what’s to return. I’m assuming that every open space introduces a brand new puzzle idea, which implies that there might be one other 9 or so right here. I can see late puzzles getting a little bit overwhelming if I’m juggling that many instruments, however I’ve religion that developer Croteam is aware of how tough it could actually get earlier than reaching the purpose of frustration. That energy is on full show within the first quarter of the journey. Just like the sequel’s talkative androids, I yearn to uncover each secret I can on this mysterious world. Maintain tossing me puzzles which can be this effectively designed and I’ll hold fixing them.
The Talos Precept 2 is scheduled to launch this yr for PC, Xbox Collection X/S, and PS5.
Editors’ Suggestions