Watch The Talos Principle being played...poorly

As a fan of Jonas Kyratzes' work, I did a double-take when I saw his name at E3, during the trailer for Croteam's The Talos Principle. The Lands of Dream co-creator, along with talented fellow writer Tom Jubert (The Swapper, FTL, Penumbra), and of course developers Croteam, are making a philosophical first-person puzzler and "metaphysical parable about intelligence and meaning in an inevitably doomed world". As this hour-and-a-bit Let's Play of the beta version reveals, it's a metaphysical parable about intelligence and meaning in an inevitably doomed world involving droney robots, security cameras, QR codes and jamming devices. Also a beautiful Mediterranean ruined world.

Here's publisher Devolver's introduction to the video: "The Devolver Digital intern is tasked with playing an in-development build of Croteam's The Talos Principle and is publicly shamed for his poor reasoning and logic". He's not actually that bad at deciphering the lightly Portalesque puzzles though, thankfully, or else this might be pretty difficult to watch.

I'm enjoying The Talos Principle's open approach to puzzles, with rooms upon rooms leading off in multiple directions, which are all helpfully named in a Jet Set Willy stylee to offer some hint about the brainteasers you're about to face. I wouldn't recommend watching the whole thing—it's about 80 minutes long, and that's surely going to spoil a good chunk of the game—but dipping in and out, skipping ahead every so often, should give you a good idea of how it plays.

The Talos Principle is out this Autumn/Fall. (Thanks, Blue's News .)

Tom Sykes

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.

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