A game about freedom of choice shouldn't judge the player for what choice they make: by doing so, The Talos Principle ultimately presents choice in a very binary and manipulative way. Obedience to rebellion is still obedience, and choosing to obey authority is still a choice. That's an interesting perspective I never considered. I know that there isn't exactly an ending inspired by that idea, but hey, maybe that'll be addressed in the coming sequel. (Interestingly, it also allows Milton, a potential co-conspirator in defying ELOHIM, to be set free as well.) But from listening to Alexandra, it's clear that what she wants to impart in the AI is a sense of what it means to be human, and a sentience transcending that understanding. The Tower ending also appears to emphasize defiance and considers that evidence of critical thinking. The Gate ending does make it seem like independence is the ideal that the simulation is seeking from the AI programs. I didn't even find it on my first playthrough.) (Curiously, this seems to be the most well-hidden out of all her time-capsule recordings. If we don't make that part of the simulation, all we'll create is a really effective slave. Intelligence is the ability to question existing thought-constructs. Intelligence is more than problem-solving intelligence is questioning the assumptions you're presented with. And aside from learning that she created the simulation, and that her dream was for a machine to inherit the spirit of humanity, there's also this quote that addresses the dichotomy of those two endings: With Alexandra, however, it was as if she was speaking to me, the player. To me, ELOHIM and Milton felt like they were trying to convince the AI existing inside the simulation. But the one that truly captured my attention as I played, however, was Alexandra Drennan. The most obvious influential figures in the game are, of course, ELOHIM and Milton. I never really saw it that way, but in a meta sense, that is a very good point. "Bad dog! Wrong choice! Choose the box labeled 'independent'! Do it now!" It's a game and us players are going to try to win. The best part is when the player goes along with ELOHIM anyway. So, we end up following official instructions without realizing, while being praised as rebels and feeling smug at having seen through the big bad authority. The game pulls a very clever trick on the player, it bets that we won't recognize official instructions or authoritative information if it doesn't come from a big booming voice in the sky. you really were following the plan the whole time. And of course, near the very top it's revealed that climbing the Tower was exactly what the simulation had been designed to get you do do all along, i.e. I was even promised mysterious quasi-sacred good stuff at the top of the Tower too. However, I was going up the Tower in large part because it *was* the clearly marked Correct Choice, not because ELOHIM said so but because the game said so, because it's the Obvious Good Ending. I was praised for making my own decisions rather than blindly following instructions and holding out for sacred mysteries. This is not totally explicit, in the sense that the Gate does not have "Warning: This is a trap!" painted above it in dried blood, but it's hardly subtle.Īs a result, it seemed very strange that while pursuing the Tower ending, the game's narrative started framing things in terms of independence vs obedience. By the time the two 'main' endings are clearly in view, the game's general narrative has pretty clearly indicated the Tower as the good ending, and the Gate as the bad ending. Then, as the game continues, ELOHIM starts to seem increasingly unreliable, while the player keeps encountering clues that some critically important mystery lies at the top of the Tower. Even if a player never spoke to Milton, ELOHIM never makes quite enough sense, and the QR codes warn about him in multiple places. Wondering if anyone else thought this.įrom quite early on, the game clearly hints at something wrong with ELOHIM. I tried the Gate and Tower endings and noticed something very funny about them. I picked up Talos Principle in a recent sale and just finished the base game.
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