The Talos Principle: Reawakened is a reminder that remasters can and should be more

What’s the point of a remaster? What should it be? What purpose should it serve? What can a developer accomplish by going back to an old game besides slapping some new paint on it? Why do it? The Talos Principle has always grappled with big questions: What do we owe each other? How should we live? What does it mean to be human? It makes sense that Croteam, when deciding to remaster it, would be interested in what this remaster should be.

The Talos Principle: Reawakened is a compelling answer to that question. In an age where remasters sometimes release only a few years after the original game with barely noticeable visual bumps, The Talos Principle: Reawakened offers something more. Yes, the visual update is there, and The Talos Principle: Reawakened looks lovely, far better than the original game. Foliage is lusher, shadows look better, textures are much improved, there’s ray tracing, and so on. I won’t waste your time or mine by going into more detail. There are screenshots and trailers and a demo for anyone who wants to get a feel for the new visuals. At a certain point, we can only say that something looks great so many times.

The parts that made The Talos Principle good are still here. The original game is still a remarkable puzzle game with an interesting narrative that asks big questions and encourages you to think. The Road to Gehenna DLC is included, too, which is also excellent. So the whole package is here, and it all looks better than ever, but the real reason to check out The Talos Principle: Reawakened is the new stuff.

There are several prizes here. The first is developer commentary, which is fascinating if you’ve ever been interested in how games are made and the people behind them. What will get more action for most folks is the incredibly detailed puzzle editor, which allows you to create some incredibly complex puzzles. Better yet, you can share them online and download the ones that other folks have made. That rules.

For most folks, and for me, the real appeal here will be In the Beginning, which is a new DLC that serves as a prequel to the original game. There aren’t a ton of lore dumps or plot revelations here. This is a story about two people — Alexandra Drennan from the Institute for Applied Noematics and the AI that will become Elohim — at the end of the world told through the Simulation’s first text run. You know how this story ends. But there’s pathos and a strange kind of beauty at the end of everything. It’s in the way these people spend their final days, knowing what’s coming, and dedicating what remains to what matters. It’s a good fit for a game built on philosophy. Aren’t our lives defined by how we spend them, especially when we know our time is limited? It’s a story about people, and it’s there that In the Beginning finds its soul.

It’s also in the in-universe developer pins scattered throughout the world, which are based on what Croteam used while making the game. There’s beauty here: bits of philosophy, poetry, notes from the developers, bugs to be fixed, bugs to be left alone because there simply isn't enough time. Some are just notes on a lovely view, and how the descendants of humanity will be surrounded by beauty. One that stuck with me was a bug fix that turned into one developer telling another goodbye. He knew he was dying, and he would be leaving the Institute, and he wanted to let the guy who had made the report know how much he’d meant to him. 

Once, I wandered off to an empty area between puzzles, and proto-Elohim asked Alexandra whether there should be a reward there. Alexandra had to explain that the reward was the exploration itself. Putting something beautiful, funny, or surprising was good, but nothing was okay, too. Exploration had value in and of itself. Croteam was making a statement on game design in a world where games seem hell-bent on bombarding us with rewards at every turn, and it was something I didn’t know I needed to hear until I got it.

There are lots of little moments like this — one involving a football game called Football Glory 9 (a nod to Croteam’s very first game, Football Glory), the engine for which was apparently the base for the Simulation. The Talos Principle has always had a lot to say, but it never forgets to have a good time, too.

What’s remarkable about the levels in In the Beginning is that they’re the work of several fans and modders brought in by Croteam, who helped modify their puzzles to fit the game and made sure everyone got paid for their work. What’s even better is that these puzzles are difficult. The Talos Principle’s puzzles always make you feel you need one more piece; one more connector to connect a laser, a jammer to force open that door, one more block to hold down a switch, and so on. But you never do. It feels impossible right until it doesn’t, until some part of your brain says “it can’t be that easy, can it?” and then it is. And it feels amazing every time because the joy is not in the solution. Puzzles are meant to be solved. It’s in the process of finding it.

Sure, The Talos Principle: Reawakened is a remaster. But it’s also a celebration of a community, a story about people at the end of the world trying to save what they can, a last act of preservation based on the questions we’ve asked ourselves since we could look at the stars in awe and had language to wonder who we are, where we come from, and where we’re going. So what should a remaster be? Living memory. A time to reflect. A thing gifted to the future, handed off to the next generation, entrusted to those who come after. It’s the choice about what we save, and what we leave behind, that answers the greatest question of all: who are we?

These impressions are based on a PC code provided by the publisher. The Talos Principle: Reawakened releases on Steam, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 on April 10th, 2025.

Will Borger

Contributing Editor

Will Borger is a Pushcart Prize-nominated fiction writer and essayist who has been covering games since 2013. His fiction and essays have appeared in YourTango, Veteran Life, Marathon Literary Review, Purple Wall Stories, and Abergavenny Small Press. His games writing has also appeared at IGN, TechRadar, Into the Spine, Lifebar, PCGamesN, The Loadout, and elsewhere. He lives in New York with his wife and dreams of owning a dog. You can find him on X @bywillborger.