Way to start the new year with a bang! Ok ok, I was playing this through the end of 2023, but really how else can I put when I finished it? Now don't get me wrong, this did not come out of left field or anything. I absolutely loved the game it's a sequel to, but after my time so far playing with Unreal 5 (in the form of Starship Troopers) I had concerns about performance and general game quality this time around. Thankfully I was not only proven to be worrying over nothing, the game carried by the engine is arguably my favorite game of 2023, taking even the title from the CyberGoddess of Citidel Station's outing! Well done!
Story: Welcome to New Jerusalem. Everyone has been expecting you, for you are officially the 1000th citizen to walk off the assembly line and join the city. Did I mention you are not human? Well, not organically one, anyway. None of you are. This is a post human world and an apocalyptic event has removed organic humanity from the face of it. But in a final plea to continue society, a small group of scientists put a project in place to evolve artificial intelligence as their successors... and you are the last one to be built, representing the Goal for how many of you should exist, and the celebration of your birth is about to begin!
But the joyous event would not happen without it's own unplanned interruptions, for as the mayor of this city was giving his speech to coronate it all, a being of energy burst into the scene. Calling himself Prometheus, he called out to the people to dare come find "the flame" before he was chained up and disappeared again. Once gone, it became clear to the people the source was an island where a strange energy signature had already been detected. At the time, the mayor just wanted to leave it alone, fearing the extension of resources needed to investigate... but that was no longer an option. Something there had clearly shown interest in the city, and there was no ignoring it anymore. It's time to explore the island and discover it's mysteries!
This is the basic premise that will begin your adventure, but from humble beginnings, great things will come. Once again this is the kind of game where discovery makes up the tail way too much to want to give any of it away: the journey itself is just to full of wonders to find. And in addition, there are several personal stories going on which you will catch glimpses of and even influence by talking to your fellow explorers, asking their advice and even offering some of your own, making it really feel like you have a team out there (even if the puzzle work that makes up most of the game is all you... for the most part).
Not that these are your only companions either. Right from the beginning you will be granted access to a social network these new humans keep between themselves, and while you are out exploring, you will occasionally get messages through this interface from people back home, eager to talk about what you found, ideas about how things should go from here, and even just art pieces some of them made and want to show everyone. It paints a rather full picture of the world you are part of and will ultimately play a massive roll in guiding the future to. Just like it's predecessor, there is more then one story at play here, but this time, it's more about what's going on at home instead of finding out what happened before. It all comes together brilliantly and is an absolute joy to behold. Other writers should take note... THIS is how you write an open-world style story!
9/10
Graphics: This is quite possibly the single best looking game I have ever played. Really the best way I can do it justice would be to just run a video and say "LOOK AT IT" but that just might be cheating, so allow me to try to explain what you will see.
The Talos Principle 2 is part of the new crop of games that run on the brand-spanking-new Unreal 5 engine, and it shows. From the moment you start your game and you see the open sky, this one is simply going to floor you like few games ever will... enough so you may think that is just a nice picture over the screen... and then the game begins in an ancient Egyptian setting and you suddenly can not be so sure. This is the kind of look Croteam (who incidentally made this game too) only WISH they could have put into Serious Sam 3. This game right here rivals what you might see in some modern movies (but not the most recent Marvel ones... I don't want to insult Croteam like that).
And then you find out this is just the opening act before the real game begins and you wake up in your new body born in the real world, jumping from a world of ruins to a utopian sci-fi city, if one that under the surface shows it's a bit more worn then the citizens there would like to admit, and just about all the care and detail the game showed in the smaller space is here too. But I will have to say just about due to the distances this world has and the initial simulation just did not.
You see, the Unreal 5 engine specializes in changing both the lighting and complexity of models on the fly based on how far they are from the camera, and this game didn't quite blend that right. As a result, (at least on medium settings which is what I played on) sometimes the things you see way out there change to look a lot worse before you get close enough to even worry about them. It's a sacrifice that you will notice from time to time just due to how open this game is, but the rarity of it just makes those moments stand out all the more.
Nor will you be in this world alone, and the game makes that obvious from the moment you wake up greeted by a nice lady who's whole job is to welcome new citizens into the world and explain what is going on. She looks, well like everybody else in the game more or less. You are all robots with no real need for distinct forms beyond technological upgrades as time marched on, leaving most to be distinguished by the colors of their armor plating, the glow in their eyes, and their voices. But the detail is absolutely brilliant, and you can expect to see this level of quality from start to finish and across some absolutely stunning backdrops you will NOT forget anytime soon.
And all of this with absolutely no frame drops and as I said at the beginning, this is a drop-dead-gorgeous game that is quite possibly the best looking thing I have seen to date!
9/10
Sound: There are not going to be a lot of sound effects in this game. There are no enemies in this game, so the sounds you will be hearing are for the most part your metal footsteps (or splashing as you stomp or wade through water), the sounds of the various tools you will get to use during puzzles, and the sounds of nature around you. These all sound very good and fairly real to the world, but this is something I can say about just about any other modern game out there. Sound effects are at this point one of those things that is just so good, it's rare for anything to really stand out if it's for the right reasons.
The music will also rarely stand out for that matter, but not because it's another orchestra bellowing epic tunes. Rather, this game decided to go for a more subdued and quasi-technical, often reflecting the wonder of someone new to the world as they explore both New Jerusalem, the ruins that contain the puzzles that make up most of the game, or even inside the core structure that you will spend the majority of your time studying or trying to enter to study. It is an understated piece that compliments your journey perfectly, from curious to almost religious triumph. It sounds great but it never overstates what is going on, making for a rather perfect setup to play to.
But once again, like so many other games we see these days, its' the voice acting that will win the awards here. 1K (your character) is a silent protagonist, and as much as you will pick things for them to say in conversations (or on social media) with others, their voice will never be heard so much as assumed those exact words came out of them. Everyone else, however, will have a lot to say, and in fact the story side of this game is carried heavily by this work. Everyone's personality (and they are all unique) just oozes out of this game splendidly and run the absolute gammut. Perhaps the two characters that best emphasize the range are companions who will be with you for most of your journey, Byron and Alcatraz. While the best of friends, one is ever the optimist who is excited at what new discovery might just be around the corner while the other is cautious and pessimistic, worried about what new threat to the city all these sudden developments could represent. The duo just bounce off each other (and you, and really everyone else) brilliantly and are just a reflection of the work this entire cast brought to the table. Absolutely brilliant!
9/10
Gameplay: You will play The Talos Principle 2 from either a 1st or 3rd person view, depending entirely on your taste (literally there is a key just for toggling this) as you run around the locations surrounding the megastructure. These will be divided into sections you will gain access to as you play through the game via a personalized subway system, and each one is layed out to be a semi-expansive area for you to explore and discover just what it has in store for you. Feel free to run around exploring to your heart's content.
Once you've had your fill of the layout, then it will be time to get to work completing the puzzles available to you. Each of these sections will contain 10 and require you to complete 8 before you can finish the area. These puzzles will all be physics based, offering you a layout to navigate using the tools allotted to reach an alter-like table, the activation of which will unleash a set of particle/energy to fly into a gateway guarding the entrance to a central structure. This structure will be DRAMATICALLY different in style from section to section, ranging from towers to statues to what looks to me like a giant sea-mine and beyond. But each one contains basically the same thing: a laser beam that makes 1/3rd of the lock to their given side of the megastructure in the center of the island you find yourself on. Finish the three sections of that side and you are in!
Not that that is going to be an easy feat. These puzzles range from easy to devilish and in such a way that you may well find different ones more difficult then others, just depending on how your mind wraps around them. Sometimes you will find yourself blasting through them rapid fire and feeling like a damn genius in the process, while others will leave you scratching your head and wondering just what you had missed for a good long while before it finally hits you... if it does hit you. Hell, there are achievements in this game for both coming back to a puzzle or spending over 20 minutes on a single one (I should know, I got both) as well as bonus ones for pulling off particularly hard feats on some as well (which I also got a few). It's overall one hell of an experience.
Although if you can't get all the puzzles, the game is forgiving to an extent as well. While there are bonus puzzles and end story pieces for completing everything available to you, you can select any 8 out of the 10 you wish to do to power up that gate, and if you need even more help, there are items you can find in the world called Prometheus' flames. If you find one you can use it to bypass any puzzle you desire outside of the megastructure itself. These can be hard to come by, however, so be frugal with them. (I found 5 in my playthrough and managed to collect 4. I know there are more about though.
Once you finish these, the gate itself will prove a puzzle all it's own, and like the original game it will involve tetrominos (or Tetris-pieces if you prefer), but not quite in the same way. In the original game, you would earn these pieces to undo a gate lock by filling in the square on it with those pieces. This time, you are building a bridge out of them to reach the tower you simply could not before, pushing the story along it's major beats and completing one hell of a story for the whole thing.
9/10
Bugs: I am happy to report that there were absolutely no bugs I could see while playing this game. Everything just worked great from start to finish.
Digital Rights Management: This is a new section I am adding to PC game reviews from here on out. In essence you can thank Capcom and their current debacle about trying to sneak a new DRM engine into their old games in their ongoing battle with modders for showing just how necessary it is to report this. So, at the time of writing, I will report what the current DRM situation is so you can review for yourself if it's worth it. And in case it changes, I will link to a site that tracks these things, PCGamingWiki. In this case, I am happy to report that Croteam did not include any extra DRM software in their game. All it needs is the launcher you bought the game on to run, which means it DOES effectively work without calling home to any server out there as a single player game should.
Score: If I were the type to really care about the VGAs and other video game awards, I would probably be annoyed at how robbed this game was this year to not even be nominated for GOTY. As it stands, I do believe it was robbed, I just don't see enough value in those awards to care: just a foolishness to have snubbed such a gem of a game. This game right here is the single best experience I have had gaming in all of 2023 and is a strong contender for one of the best ever. If it wasn't for the fact that puzzle games are not a gametype everyone would like, I would be giving this game a 10 out of 10 without a second thought, it's that good. But seeing how some people just will not enjoy it for the nature of what it is, that is not possible by my own rules. But know this, miss out at your own loss. This is something special like we almost never see.
9/10
System Requirements:
- Quad Core running at 2.5 Ghz (Ryzen 5 or Intel Core i3/i5)
- 8 GB RAM
- AMD Radeon RX 470 or GeForce GTX 970 (4 GB VRAM)
- 75 GB hard drive space
- Windows 10 (64-bit and version 2004 or newer)
System Specs:
- Ryzen 7 (5700X) 3.4 Ghz
- 32 GB RAM
- AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT (8 GB VRAM)
- Windows 11 (64 Bit)
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