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(Image credit: Croteam)
Aye, robot
Your android avatar comes online in a new Eden, with only a booming voice from on high for company. This is Elohim (a Hebrew word for God), who promises immortality in exchange for faith, on condition that you never climb the realm’s forbidden tower. Sure enough, within Elohim’s Ancient Rome- and Egypt-themed paradise, death in one of its puzzle spaces – which can come at the business end of an automated gun turret or exploding proximity drone – sees you quickly respawn.
Subscribe(Image credit: Future PLC)This feature originally appeared in Edge Magazine. For more fantastic in-depth interviews, features, reviews, and more delivered straight to your door or device,subscribe to Edge.
Subscribe
(Image credit: Future PLC)This feature originally appeared in Edge Magazine. For more fantastic in-depth interviews, features, reviews, and more delivered straight to your door or device,subscribe to Edge.
(Image credit: Future PLC)
This feature originally appeared in Edge Magazine. For more fantastic in-depth interviews, features, reviews, and more delivered straight to your door or device,subscribe to Edge.
The puzzles mirror this need. Complete one of the self-contained problems and your reward comes in the shape of a tetromino block. Once you’ve gathered enough of these, you assemble them into rectangles to unlock progress gates. Thus the puzzles make sense as part of a greater effort, when there’s no other obvious reason to solve them. Indeed, next to similar games, the brain-bending meat of The Talos Principle feels more like an exam than entertainment. In testing our grasp of spatial perception, force, gravity and other mathematical concepts that advanced AI could surely master with ease, it even makes us wonder whether it’s encouraging critical thinking or dampening it. Not to mention the gradual, iterative way that puzzle objects such as fans, laser reflectors and jamming devices come into play. Levels often begin with robotic setup routines as you gather gadgets for the problem at hand; many new problems differ from those before only in complexity or fussiness. For several hours it’s drummed into you that, for example, a portable cube equates to a platform, a weight or an obstruction. Does this not mould our perception, until we can’t imagine a cube as anything else?
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In short, it comes back to giving everything a purpose, while between puzzle sequences Milton volleys philosophical posers your way to muddy the waters of what that might mean. What is personhood? What is consciousness? Does free will exist? If this world is a simulation, how do we know reality isn’t a simulation? Are people not, like AI, merely a kind of machine using collected data to reach conclusions? The more you try to answer, the more Milton pokes at the logical flaws, until it’s clear that the only sure answer is that there are no final answers.
Eureka
(Image credit: Devolver)
“What The Talos Principle does eventually allow us to do is suggest to Milton that these vague hypotheticals are ultimately a childish pursuit.”
“What The Talos Principle does eventually allow us to do is suggest to Milton that these vague hypotheticals are ultimately a childish pursuit.”
But then, in a wider sense, that’s also the point. What The Talos Principle does eventually allow us to do is suggest to Milton that these vague hypotheticals are ultimately a childish pursuit. If every question is full of assumptions and every answer is unsatisfactory, we might arrive at nihilism, as Milton eventually seems to, until climbing the tower or not becomes a meaningless choice. And yet, knowing all that, we have to do something, and the tower calls. Humans can’t escape a sense of purpose, and can’t stop forming stories to explain it – duty, curiosity, progress, personal fulfilment, self-sacrifice – based on beliefs and values that structure everything we do.
Once you climb the tower, the simulation ends (although yet a third ending awaits true completionists). The artificial world disintegrates, symbolising the end of human control – leaving you, the independent AI, alone in reality. What happens next is now chronicled in the sequel (see ‘Second coming’), yet there remains a kind of missing link between the two games. Unlike the original evictees from Eden, our AI has no urge to procreate, no need to build shelter. So why would it want to create a new civilisation? Where does it get the narrative inclination? Or, with a different spin, what would happen if an AI could play and finish The Talos Principle? What conclusions would it reach? What would it do after? Indeed, why would it choose to play at all? Having posed a lot of questions, we can offer an answer to this last one, at least from our human perspective: the experience of contemplating these puzzlers is reason enough.
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1Nemesis review: “A magical sense of tension”
1Nemesis review: “A magical sense of tension”
1
Nemesis review: “A magical sense of tension”
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2Arcs review: “A whole lot of game in a small package”
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Arcs review: “A whole lot of game in a small package”
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3Path of Exile 2 review: “A stellar start to a thrilling and brutal dark adventure”
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4Indiana Jones and the Great Circle review: “The best adventure Indy has embarked on in over 30 years”
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2Mufasa: The Lion King review – “It’s no Hakuna Matata but this Disney origin story is a class above the 2019 movie”
2Mufasa: The Lion King review – “It’s no Hakuna Matata but this Disney origin story is a class above the 2019 movie”
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3Kraven the Hunter review: “The insistence on an R-rating helps save this, with a decent helping of bloodthirsty action”
3Kraven the Hunter review: “The insistence on an R-rating helps save this, with a decent helping of bloodthirsty action”
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4The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim review – “An uninspired expansion of the most iconic screen take on Tolkien”
4The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim review – “An uninspired expansion of the most iconic screen take on Tolkien”
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5Nightbitch review: “Amy Adams' disappointing dark comedy is all bark and no bite”
5Nightbitch review: “Amy Adams' disappointing dark comedy is all bark and no bite”
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Nightbitch review: “Amy Adams' disappointing dark comedy is all bark and no bite”
1Doctor Who 2024 Christmas special review: “Ncuti Gatwa is as magnetic as ever in this delightful festive treat”
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2Secret Level review: “An uneven experience with serious highlights that ultimately make up for the misses”
2Secret Level review: “An uneven experience with serious highlights that ultimately make up for the misses”
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3Skeleton Crew review: “Perfectly captures the vibes of classic Star Wars with a swashbuckling twist”
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3
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4Creature Commandos review: “James Gunn’s heartwarming, R-rated tale about super-monsters proves that the DCU is in good hands”
4Creature Commandos review: “James Gunn’s heartwarming, R-rated tale about super-monsters proves that the DCU is in good hands”
4
Creature Commandos review: “James Gunn’s heartwarming, R-rated tale about super-monsters proves that the DCU is in good hands”
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5Cobra Kai season 6, part 2 review: “Returns to the sort of hard-hitting form that made it such a fan favorite in the first place”
5
Cobra Kai season 6, part 2 review: “Returns to the sort of hard-hitting form that made it such a fan favorite in the first place”