“Bunny Hop” from World 2 is beautiful because it’s tiny yet appears to be completely impossible. Nonetheless, this is exactly the kind of challenge Talos veterans need. The silver lining is that there are only two recording puzzles in Gehenna. I’m thinking here about “Crater” in World 2 which forces the player into constant running back and forth with a jammer and, just like the recording puzzles, this means experimentation is time-consuming and less enjoyable. Croteam even joke about by calling the largest puzzle “Goliath” in World 4.Ī downside of the larger scale is some puzzles require so much legwork around their space that it gets a bit tiring. Bigger puzzles are more difficult almost due to obfuscation as it’s harder to break them down into component parts. I won’t be coy about it: generally, they’re harder because they are bigger. Gehenna doesn’t beat around the bush, the difficulty is vicious from the start with every puzzle in that special category known as “I’ll come back to this one later”. The player takes on the role of this disturbingly named “URIEL_COPY” and is sent into a secret part of the simulation where Elohim has imprisoned a bunch of child programs inside super-hard puzzles. In the expansion, Elohim makes a copy of the messenger Uriel and tasks him with undoing his “mistake” before the simulation is shut down and wiped. Spoilers for The Talos Principle and The Road to Gehenna follow. It’s so good that I now tend to think of Talos as a prequel to Gehenna. It would be more accurate to write I “oozed through it like syrup”. although I fear the word “tear” has overstated my skills. Whereas I played Talos over nine months, I was more aggressive in working through Gehenna, tearing through it in a matter of weeks. Did you know that?”Īfter completing The Talos Principle, I immediately bought The Road to Gehenna. “There was nothing here when I first arrived. The first part and second parts were posted earlier this week. This is the final part of a three-part essay on The Talos Principle which includes commentary from writers Jonas Kyratzes and Tom Jubert. 29Oct/15 Off Talos, 3: Where The Words End, The World Ends