Review: The Talos Principle’s “Road to Gehenna” DLC

The Talos Principle is one of those puzzle games that I love to hate – a mind-twisting puzzle game with a high-minded philosophical story to back it up. As much as I love the genre, I feel like I burnt out my ability to think laterally after playing through Portal 2’s co-op campaign. I always reach a point where my brain just can’t quite work through the puzzle anymore.

The Talos Principle helped balance this by slowly introducing its various puzzle elements – laser directors, fans, barriers, pressure pads and more. By layering the introduction of each element and ramping up their difficulties individually, the game kept me going for a lot longer than I otherwise would have stuck around for.

As such, I was excited to get my hands on Road to Gehenna, Croteam’s new expansion to the main game. Gehenna tells a side-story to The Talos Principle’s main narrative, where you take on the role of Uriel – messenger of Elohim, the main game’s unseen narrator and the maker of its world. Elohim apologises for ‘the mistakes he has made’, and sets you on a path to free other consciousnesses – minds controlling robotic human bodies – trapped within the puzzles of Gehenna.

This differs slightly from the core game, where the aim was simply to complete puzzles and climb a tower at the center of the game’s world. Seeing these robotic figures accumulate in gehenna’s hub world offers a concrete indicator of how much progress you’ve made in this DLC.

Another thing that sets Road to Gehenna apart from the main game is its difficulty level. Oh lordy, these puzzles are HARD. I’m not going to lie to you, readers. This gave me a lot of trouble. Coming back to a game for DLC after a long absence offers enough challenge as you re-learn the rules of the game world and its mechanics, but in Gehenna the difficulty is cranked to 11. This is sated in no uncertain terms in the DLC’s description, but I don’t think I really prepared myself for it.

In all honesty, I didn’t make it through a huge amount of this DLC. I’m no pro puzzler, so I felt stumped by a lot of the puzzles. No doubt it would simply be a case of thinking through the problem from a very specific angle, but it eluded me. That said, the few puzzles I did manage to figure out left me with a strong sense of achievement. The more challenging the problem is, the greater sense of satisfaction when it clicks in your brain.

All in all, I’d say that Road to Gehenna is a good choice if you are one of those true puzzle fiends. In my experience, it should give you a run for your money. For us mere mortals however, it may be a bit much. The extra story opened up by this DLC has me interested, and I do want to push on. Getting there might take a helping hand, though. If nothing else, it’s a very pretty place to prove to yourself how bad you are at problem-solving.

The Talos Principle‘s “Road to Gehenna” DLC was reviewed using a promotional code on PC, as provided by the publisher.

Review: The Talos Principle’s “Road to Gehenna” DLC

The good It’s really hard (if you’re into that). Maintains the game’s ancient-but-glitchy aesthetic. Expands the mythos of the main game.	The bad It’s REALLY hard. No real difficulty curve – more of a difficulty vertical ascent.

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