The Talos Principles -- Croteam

8 January 2026

Experiencing the game

The Talos Principles is a puzzle game with a backdrop of a story. The puzzles themselves are quite engaging to start with but feel slightly repetitive towards the end. The difficulty stays fairly consistent and I didn’t need any tutorials barring a few handful instances. I played the game over a quarter and did not rush with it, even picking up different games in the middle. The soundtrack also deserves a mention. It was nice to have the OST at the back while solving the puzzles.

Most of the story is hidden within journal notes however basics of it become clear even without tedious reading. The whole concept of learning to solve the puzzles as a robot as the robot learns too is meta and quite enjoyable. One of the more engaging bits of the game were the audio logs sprinkled throughout the levels which were one of the most thought-provoking in the entire game. Here’s all of them, just 15 mins of them. Worth a listen! Another thought-provoking mechanics were the conversations with the library assistant, however these were limited by the pre-written options to choose from. This video goes through the entire story descriptively

The theme it revolves around

The Talos Principles is based on existentialism and what it means to be conscious and human. Can a robot ever be a human? What makes a being human? The audio logs and the library assistant are the fore-bearers for supplying these philosophical debates. Apart from them, the narrator, Elohim, also does a good job in sounding believable and definitely provides food for thought. The game sticks to these themes patiently till the end and neither stretches it nor leaves it unexplained (significantly at least). That said, the game does try to be slightly pretentious at times but is forgiven for the sake of being interesting.

Finally, and the best part, the game’s premise sounds believable, the characters feel human (ironically), the weight feels real. This part is what resonates with me the most.

The thoughts I had during and after completing it

While playing the game, for the most parts, I was too engrossed in solving the puzzles with an occasional audio log or conversation with library assistant to think about the direction in which the game is going.

After the game though, once I went through the story in a bit more detail, is when I realised how profound the game was. Everything fell into place. There was an answer to every question you raise about the game’s premise. The story is tightly knit in that sense.

Negatives

The negatives I have for the game are more than just nitpicks unfortunately. Number one, would be the limited and forced responses to the Library Assistant. I probably would have liked to argue a bit more, but considering the budget and technology at the time, I cannot blame the developers there. Another complaint of mine would be collecting the stars. They were placed very obnoxiously and finding them proved to be a challenge off of itself. Even the reward of collecting all of them was poor and out of place so I am glad I skipped the part Finally, the game did feel a bit lazy towards the end of the puzzles. The last few items were under-utilised. As for the story too, maybe a bit more exposition would have helped. I wished I didn’t have to watch a YouTube video to understand the story as well as I did eventually but maybe I am biased.