The Talos Principle 2 promises more philosophical pondering and mind-bending puzzles

Philosophical pondering and first-person puzzling returns this year with The Talos Principle 2. The sequel was discreetly announced many moons ago, but developers Croteam and publisher Devolver Digital debuted its first trailer at last night’s PlayStation Showcase. Come take a look below and maybe contemplate robo-sentience while you’re at it.

Humankind has long been extinct, passing our existential dread over to the remaining androids who wonder the world. This sequel puts us on a mission to investigate a mysterious structure – presumably the metal pyramid shown off in the trailer – where we’ll discover more headscratchers and gloomy details about the past. Croteam threatens that we’ll be “confronted with questions about the nature of the cosmos, faith versus reason, and the fear of repeating humankind’s mistakes” during our trek.

The original’s puzzles were great from what I played, featuring a laser-reflecting, turret-dodging, and some timey-wimey stuff. The sequel promises all that cerebral goodness, plus some new mechanics such as gravity manipulation and mind transference. On top of all that puzzling, there’ll also be a massive new world to explore where you’ll be making choices that can lead to multiple endings.

Writers Jonas Kyratzes, Verena Kyratzes, and Tom Jubert are all returning to pen the sequel. The Kyratzes duo took a break from chewing over life’s biggest questions to work on Croteam’s other big project: the run and gunning Serious Sam 4. That’s fitting since the first puzzler actually had an odd Serious Sam crossover DLC. A connected universe perhaps?

Anyway, The Talos Principle 2 is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox sometime in 2023. You can wishlist it now on Steam.

We loved the original robopuzzler since it made it onto our best puzzle games list. Needless to say we’ll be keeping a close eye on the sequel.