Difficulty : 2.5/5 (A bit Hard)
4/5 for In the Beginning (Very Hard)

Global : 5/5 (Perfect)

Curator page : Anokturnus - originally written for Thinky Games[thinkygames.com]

A flood of memories came back as I booted The Talos Principle: Reawakened. I remember getting stunned as I listened to that powerful ominous menu music for the first time, I knew instantly The Talos Principle would be special.
The Talos Principle: Reawakened aims to give a second wind to that classic game through active level editor support and graphics that won't get old before a long time. The many improvements correct the few flaws the original game had, resulting in a perfected and timeless edition. Let's go into detail!

An important thing to note is that this Reawakened version only has improvements. The physics, the scenery, the texts... nothing has been touched, the original experience is completely intact.
I feared they would try to entirely "fix" the game to make it feel more like The Talos Principle 2. If you're like me and love to seek for, let's say, "special" solutions, then you know how broken the original game was. Lots of puzzles could be cheesed with weird platforming by taking advantage of the many decorative elements, implying you could also explore out of bounds areas easily. I loved that so much! To the point where the first thing I did after a few puzzles was platforming my way out of the Reawakened tutorial. That "brokenness" actually added a lot of depth and potential to the meta puzzles; it wasn't used a lot in the game, but was cleverly exploited in the old custom campaigns.

The main change is obviously the graphics, the Serious Engine was dropped for Unreal Engine since The Talos Principle 2. I think the original graphics are still very good but let's be honest, this is better. Both Talos Principle games have a strong visual identity, The Talos Principle 2 especially outdid itself in terms of magnificent architecture, not much was required to make those environments shine. The Talos Principle 1 was more basic though and needed an extra dose of oomph, so they heavily focused on the lighting for this remake. You can tell right away how much effort went into it and it works wonders, without damaging the atmosphere of the game.
About the performance, you can expect roughly the same as The Talos Principle 2. My framerate was a bit worse on average but I also had almost no stuttering.

An important feature concerns the infamous recorder. The main problem was about the timings, if you wanted your clone to stand still for 30 seconds... well, yeah, you had to record and stand still for 30 seconds. Any error also meant you needed to record everything again, and they happened all the time as this is by far the most complex mechanic in the game. The fast forward feature helped speed up the process, but that wasn't enough. The line between fair and frustrating was just too easily crossed, preventing this mechanic to really shine.
And so, the recorder revolution has happened! Checkpoints can now be set up during the recording, they automatically pause the replay and thus completely nullify the time you spent doing nothing... and you can even rewind! The recorder puzzles are much, much better now.
And there's even more! I'll let you figure out how, but this feature is more than just quality of life. It actually adds depth and is smartly used in the new chapter, I'm sure there's a lot to do with it.

Although this is where it's the most useful, the new rewind feature is not only restricted to the recorder puzzles and can be used at any time to go back a few seconds in time. It's very useful to prevent softlock situations... and for weird people like me who love doing parkour everywhere. I still encountered a few bugs with it, but I've no doubt Croteam will quickly address them.

In the original game, you couldn't get any hint before you got access to the final temple hub. This is not the case anymore, you now need to explore and find purple medals gently hidden inside the worlds and puzzles. They give you access to the messenger worlds much earlier, which is a good thing as it better spreads their discovery throughout the game. You can also gain up to 9 hints now instead of 3, which is more balanced for new players.

The level editor is one of the two major additions. The original game actually had workshop support for custom maps, but it wasn't an easy-to-use editor like this one. As a result, there were only a few maps available and some of them even became unplayable without changing the game's version, which is annoying. I still played and completed most of them though, and what I can tell you is that they are, still to this day, the best puzzle experience I've ever had by far. You can always count on the community to get creative and push everything to its limits, the potential of The Talos Principle far exceeds what you can imagine. I have no doubt new campaigns of the same quality will emerge, especially if Croteam keeps on holding puzzle jams and incentivizing creativity like they're currently doing for the demo.

A few minor additions like the developers' commentary (which I completely forgot about because it's turned off by default, be careful if you want to hear these interesting messages!) or new music also enrich this remake. The soundtrack of The Talos Principle has always been incredible, and a new delightful alternative version of "Virgo Serena" (that menu music I love so much) graces our ears in the final temple hub.

It's finally time to talk about the new chapter, In the Beginning! Taking place during the early testing phase of the Simulation, we follow Alexandra Drennan and her team as they talk about this first test and about their life. Philosophy has been tuned down a bit, no terminal is to be found here, only (funny) bug reports. The focus is on the dialogues and I have to say, it's a nice change from the texts of the base game.
The highlights are the dialogues between Alexandra and the young Elohim. As you solve puzzles, Elohim tries to learn and understand more about their mission and their future. The innocent nature of this Elohim and the heartfelt answers of Alexandra have a very touching side, explaining why Elohim has grown so much since then.
In the Beginning can be seen as a miniature version of the base game, consisting of a small tower and a world for each of the three biomes. Each world has 6 puzzles and a star, which may seem a bit low but don't worry, we're talking about very high quality puzzles. Some of them are straightforward but brutal, to the point I sometimes didn't even know if my solutions were intended. Some others are large and intricate, in the purest style of Talos 1 with several steps required. I found them to be particularly inspired, they take full advantage of the new quality of life features and aren't scared to put you in tricky softlock situations. These puzzles were made with the help of old Talos 1 modders, it comes as no surprise they are so good.
I didn't like the stars in The Talos Principle 2. I'm glad to see they did bother to make proper new ones for this chapter, but there's still no new meta or interconnected puzzle, which left me a bit concerned. Come on Croteam, this is a gold mine you got there! It's the most fun aspect of the Talos series for me, it's so painful to see it is nearly unexploited now.
Anyway, I absolutely didn't expect In the Beginning to be in the continuity of the Road to Gehenna difficulty, it was a great pleasure as I'm a big fan of very challenging puzzles. Overall a pretty much perfect addition to me, though I don't know if that would justify a buy in itself. It took me 6-7 hours to beat everything, you be the judge!

I'm more than ready to sink a few hundred hours into the community puzzles before the next Talos masterpiece drops, have a good (re)discovery!

This is so much more than a remaster. I am loving re-exploring the garden worlds, and although the new "In The Beginning" puzzles are very difficult, it feels so rewarding when you figure it out. This is everything I wanted the remaster to be.

Talos Principle was already one of the greatest games ever created. This remake uses the newest tech advances to make the visuals as awe inspiring as the game's story.