Hands on with The Talos Principal 2 DLC - Preview
The challenging and puzzle filled world of The Talos Principle 2 beckons to us once more. On the Road to Elysium, we get to explore and search the wonderous Isle of the Blessed, experiencing a tropical paradise through new eyes.
The Road to Elysium DLC is split into three parts, and I got to go hands on with the ‘middle’ chapter of sorts. The Isle of the Blessed puts you in control of Yaqut, one of the major characters involved in the main story of the Talos Principle. Through him, you’ll attempt to impress Miranda, interact with familiar characters like Melville, Athena and even 1K himself. The Isle of the Blessed beckons us.
It is impressive how many variations of puzzles the team behind The Talos Principle 2 are able to create. The majority of the Isle of the Blessed chapter will likely be exploring and enjoying the island paradise, interacting with the unbelievably funny cast of characters, but also learning about the intricacies of these characters lives that have occurred between the events of the main game and that of the Isle of the Blessed. The game itself was beautifully crafted and always a joy to explore, but the Isle of the Blessed manages to encapsulate that environmental storytelling and exploration encouragement in a way that the main game somewhat began to lose sight of as you progressed further.
Interestingly the choice to put you in control of Yaqut rather than 1K again opens up another few avenues. Yaqut is not a particularly confident puzzle solver. The other characters remarking at how easily 1K blitzed through the puzzles of the Isle (off-camera of course). Yaqut in turn being somewhat uncomfortable with the situation and almost needing to be peer-pressured into doing so by his cohort. This is however, an incredibly light-hearted chapter. The character’s ribs are all in good fun, and the puzzles themselves are approachable.
Medium-difficulty is the best way to describe the challenge of the puzzles in the Isle of the Blessed chapter. Not as difficult as some of the end game puzzles were, but not brain-numbingly simple. A few did require me to leave and come back to try again, with one puzzle in the red cluster (one of the three coloured islands to explore), stumping me completely. The lack of Prometheus tokens also means you don’t get free solves for the sake of it. You’re going to have to solve at least 8 of the puzzles to progress, and that may prove challenging for people who just don’t have the mind for The Talos Principle 2’s puzzling.
The most entertaining part of this chapter most definitely was interacting with 1K themself. Now given a voice, he is learning how to interact and in turn what matches him as a person. There are a few remarks he makes about the strangeness of linguistic phrases, making a poignant point on how something related to ‘canine’s testicles’ means something good (the dog’s bollocks). This interaction in particular I found to be my favourite. 1K feels like someone who is observing the absurdity of humanity from the outside but wants to truly understand it from the inside.
The Isle of the Blessed feels like a nice reintroduction to The Talos Principle 2. There is something to be said about exploring these relationships between the character’s again, though it does feel like I was missing some crucial plot points as to where the relationships between Yaqut and Miranda began, as well as the seeming return of Athena and Cornelius to the society as a whole. A recap of the ending may have proven beneficial, as a lot of players may be returning to the game after not thinking about it for nearly 6 months. It may be a good excuse to replay the main game again, but it’s also a lot to demand of players who are coming back purely for the new content.
Solving just the red cluster of puzzles took around about an hour a half, with some exploration and conversation thrown in. Extrapolating this, I’d believe the entire chapter will probably take around four to five hours, give or take how much faffing about one does. There is something to be said about sentient robots spending a day at the beach.
The Isle of the Blessed sets a good precedent for the rest of the Road to Elysium DLC content. It feels much more relaxing and demanding of your attention than The Talos Principle series normally does, and doesn’t pose so many philosophical questions, as it does human relationship ones. The Isle of the Blessed is promising, and I’m excited to explore the rest of this chapter, as well as the other two that make up the Road to Elysium.
The DLC will arrive on June 14 for PC, PlayStation and Xbox, which is next week, so there isn’t a long wait at all.
