The Talos Principle 2 was easily one of my favorite game releases of 2023. Wonderfully paced, wittily written and well-balanced in terms of difficulty, the first person puzzle game was an improvement in my eyes over the already amazing original game. That did get a well received epilogue DLC Road To Gehenna half a year after its release. So, I guess, it only makes sense that half a year after the release of the sequel it receives its own DLC – Road to Elysium. And while I doubt it will get as well received, it’s a really fun three piece addition to an already wonderful title.
In a somewhat surprising twist, that perhaps hints at an abandoned concept of releasing this DLC in pieces, Road to Elysium is divided into three completely separate mini-campaigns: Orpheus Ascending, Isle of the Blessed and Into the Abyss. And they’re separate not just in terms of the story, but also in terms of the gameplay focus.
Orpheus Ascending is a lighter on the story adventure focusing purely on the mechanics of the laser beams. It’s surprisingly tricky and inventive, despite the self-imposed limitation, showcasing just how many cool nuances the beams and ways to reflect them have. Isle of the Blessed is, for all intents and purposes, a condensed representation of the main game that works exactly as the main game does. It’s varied, has great dialogues and brings further closure to a lot of the characters who were important during the main story and is the main attraction of the whole DLC. While Into the Abyss is a, once again, story limited and focuses more on really tricky puzzles that sometimes require thinking a lot of steps ahead.
While the DLC is quite enjoyable to play, especially the Isle of the Blessed part, and its writing is as wonderful as it is in the main game, it also feels significantly less polished. While vast majority of the main game avoids situations where player can block the solution, requiring a checkpoint restart, this DLC (especially Into the Abyss) is rather keen on you just breaking the puzzle and needing to redo everything from scratch. It doesn’t happen all the time, in fact it probably doesn’t happen half of the time, but in contrast to how well thought out the main game is, it feels less pleasant to play. It’s also a bit of a shame that no additional mechanics, or returns of mechanics from the first game that were absent from the second, are brought in to spice things up, resulting in very much “more of the same”. And I’m also not sure if the story that characters discuss is set by the developers or take the story triggers from your main game save, as I had everything (or almost everything) be 1 to 1 with the choices that I’ve made, but maybe that’s just what developers selected as “default” story.
Frustrations aside, Road to Elysium is really enjoyable and has plenty of genuinely exciting puzzles. And quite a few surprises about how some of the mechanics can work, as none of the puzzles in the main game required the usages of these nuances. Should you grab the DLC before you get the game itself? Probably not – the main game remains wonderful and an easy recommendation, but you still should go through it and see if you want more of it, or at least if you want more of it immediately, or would like to take a break first. But if you did love the game and you want more of it, getting the DLC is a no brainer.