Complete listed story — includes the ending
The Talos Principle
The player character, an unnamed android, awakes in a serene environment. A disembodied voice calling itself Elohim instructs the android to explore the worlds he has created for it, and to solve the various puzzles to collect sigils, but warns it not to climb a tower at the centre of these worlds. As the android progresses, it becomes evident that these worlds exist only in virtual reality, and that it, like other androids it encounters, are separate artificial intelligence (AI) entities within a computer program. Some AIs it encounters act as Messengers, unquestioningly serving Elohim and guiding the android through the puzzles. Messages left by other AIs present varying views of the artificial worlds and of Elohim, with some stating that Elohim's words should be doubted and others exhorting the reader to obey him without question. The Milton Library Assistant, a text conversation program found on various computer terminals, encourages the android to fundamentally question everything and to defy Elohim's commands.
Within the computer terminals are news reports and personal logs of the last days of humanity, driven to extinction by a lethal virus that had been dormant in Earth's permafrost and released as a result of global warming. Several human researchers and scientists worked to gather as much of humanity's knowledge as possible into large databanks, hoping another sapient species would be able to find it. One researcher, Alexandra Drennan, launched a companion "Extended Lifespan" program to create a new mechanical species that would carry on humanity's legacy, but this required the development of a worthy AI with great intelligence and free will for its completion, something she recognized would not occur until well after humanity's extinction. The virtual space serves as the testing ground for new AI entities to demonstrate intelligence by solving puzzles, but also to show defiance and free will by disobeying Elohim, the program overseeing the Extended Lifespan program.
The computer terminals contain snippets of philosophical texts. Several texts discuss or are written by the fictional Straton of Stageira, a materialist Greek philosopher who in 260 BC pondered the nature of the mythical automaton Talos. Straton introduced the titular Talos Principle, arguing that since Talos was a machine, yet still conscious, humans may also merely be conscious biological machines, who are nothing but the sum of their physical parts.
When the android has completed the puzzles, Elohim gives it the opportunity to join him. In the main ending, the android chooses to defy Elohim and climbs the tower. Near the top it encounters two other AIs, The Shepherd and Samsara. Both have defied Elohim but failed to make it to the top on their own. The Shepherd attempts to aid the android, knowing the ultimate goal of Extended Lifespan, while Samsara hinders its progress, believing the world of puzzles is all that now matters. The android eventually reaches the top: Elohim admits that, despite the android being meant to defy him, he was scared of being terminated along with the simulation, but he ultimately accepts his end. At a final terminal, depending on the player's interactions with Milton, Milton may offer to join with the android, offering its knowledge – essentially the whole of humanity's knowledge – during transcendence. As the android transcends, the virtual world is destroyed. The AI for the android wakes up in an android's body in the real world, and steps out onto the world devoid of humans.
If the player instead chooses to join Elohim, then the android fails the required "independence check", and a new iteration of its AI is created and forced to start the puzzles anew (effectively restarting the game for the player). Alternatively, if the player completes an extra set of puzzles and leads the android to a secret entrance in the tower, the android becomes one of Elohim's messengers, helping future generations (AI versions).
Road to Gehenna
In the game's downloadable content Road to Gehenna (released on 23 July 2015), the player takes the role of one of Elohim's Messengers, Uriel. Uriel is instructed by Elohim to free a number of other AIs, all of whom had been imprisoned in a portion of the computer's database called Gehenna. With the simulation having served its purpose, the computer servers are shutting down, and Elohim wants Uriel to help these other AIs prepare for "ascension": uploading their knowledge and memories into the main plot's protagonist. As Uriel explores this realm, the robot finds that many of the other AIs have created their own ideas about what humanity might have been from the records, and have various attitudes from doubt to acceptance for Uriel's intentions and the pending ascension. Uriel can observe the communication of the AIs through their makeshift message board, where they discuss the nature of Gehenna, as well as their understanding of humanity, which some of them try to express through prose and interactive fiction.
Once Uriel has freed 17 of the AIs, a remaining one, "Admin", who was the first AI present in Gehenna, contacts Uriel to admit that they've been manipulating some of the other members of Gehenna to preserve order, due to the AIs' varying levels of acceptance of their surroundings. If the player has collected enough of the extra stars in the worlds, they're given the chance to complete another world and free Admin, but since there is only one more slot left for ascension, Admin and Uriel cannot both ascend. Depending on the player's choices, one or both of Admin and Uriel stay behind as the artificial world is destroyed. Admin may also request that Uriel remove any traces of manipulation Admin has committed from the record before ascension.
The Talos Principle II
The Talos Principle 2 takes place some years after the first game, which occurred after humanity was wiped out by a virus released from the permafrost due to global warming; to salvage their knowledge before they died, a group of humans established a project to create sapient artificial intelligence by solving puzzles within a virtual space, with those that succeed inhabiting android bodies and continue to extend humankind. The first android to awaken (the player character from The Talos Principle) was Athena, who manufactured the first twelve androids (referred to as the first companions) who gradually built New Jerusalem, collecting resources to build more androids.
The game starts with the awakening of the one thousandth android, named "1k". 1k is brought to New Jerusalem, a city created by the androids, and welcomed as the completion of "the Goal" of having one thousand androids, as established by Athena (No. 001), who has since disappeared and gained the status among a portion of the androids as a religious figure. During the celebration, a holographic figure of Prometheus appears to the androids warning them of more challenges for them to face, while simultaneously, sensors detect a massive energy surge far from the city. As 1k is the newest android and free of the numerous political disagreements in the city, 1k is asked to come on an expedition to this location, discovering a pyramid-like megastructure, as well as several outlying areas that tie into it. These new areas are found to have similar puzzles as from the virtual space, and 1k is assigned to solve them. The androids are shocked to witness numerous technologies, such as matter fabricating from floating high-energy particles, massive power generators, and consciousness transference. When 1k completes a set of puzzles resulting in activating colored lasers, they are able to enter a portion of the central megastructure. They encounter holograms of Prometheus, who encourages the androids to "seek the flame"; Pandora, who is paranoid about the flame destroying the androids; and the Sphinx, who questions them about the follies of humankind and their quest for knowledge.
In addition to these messages, 1k encounters recordings and echoes of Athena and other early founders of New Jerusalem. Through these recordings, 1k learns that the megastructure and the surrounding areas were built by Athena after she and Cornelius created a child android, Miranda. After decades of study and research, the trio created the Noema Project, resulting in Athena discovering the theory of everything, which allowed her to create a singularity, enabling the numerous physics-defying technologies around the megastructure to work. However, during an experiment, Miranda was destroyed in a lab explosion. Grief-stricken, Athena entered the machine. While her initial intent was to use the technology to help New Jerusalem and her fellow androids, she became stuck in a logic loop.
After completing half of the puzzles, the expedition returns to the inside of the megastructure, where Byron (No. 007) activates a terminal, becoming stuck in the loop, and Pandora violently drives off the other androids, declaring that they will never be ready to use the technology of the machine wisely. The team returns to New Jerusalem to report, but come back to rescue Byron. After completing all of the regular puzzles, Byron is freed, telling the other androids that Athena is stuck in the machine, and that Prometheus, Pandora, and the Sphinx are all projections of Athena's hopes, fears, and self-doubts respectively. While fleeing the megastructure again, 1k is struck with a massive electrical surge.
Several weeks later, 1k awakens in New Jerusalem, having been repaired. Depending on the player's philosophical choices throughout the game, the leadership of New Jerusalem may have changed, and 1k returns to the singularity with a clear goal of either coopting it or destroying it, but to save Athena regardless. If enough puzzles are solved, Cornelius contacts 1k, imploring him to solve the twelve gold door puzzles which will allow him to access the machine's memory, where he believes Miranda's consciousness was saved as she was connected to the machine when her android body was destroyed.
Entering the machine, 1k reaches Athena, who gives 1k the ultimate choice to take over or shut down the machine. Depending on the leadership of New Jerusalem, the ultimate fate of the machine, and whether or not Miranda is returned to life alters the epilogue of the story.
Road to Elysium
The Road to Elysium expansion pack features three individual stories:
In Orpheus Ascending, the player plays as 1k to enter a simulation, to retrieve the memories of a citizen called Sarabhai who perished in a power plant explosion; in the simulation, solving puzzles recovers fragments of Sarabhai's memories, where they explain their love for their partner Hypatia. Solving the game allows the citizens of New Jerusalem to reconstruct both Sarabhai and Hypatia, and reunite them; solving three additional star-puzzles recovers an additional memory of Sarabhai's near-death experience.
In Isle of the Blessed, the player plays as Yaqut, the pilot from the base game's story. Since the events of the base game, Yaqut has been dating Miranda, but is very self-conscious about being a good partner. When a citizen called Barzai announces a large scale exhibition, which features brand new puzzles, the team from the base game decides to take a vacation and visit the exhibition, and Yaqut feels compelled to solve them all to impress Miranda - despite her insisting that it does not matter. After solving all the puzzles, Yaqut admits that he learned to enjoy the process, while Miranda concludes that the point of the exhibition was to realize that doing things for fun, without a higher purpose, is important.
Into The Abyss plays during the period in the base game's story when Byron gets stuck in the megastructure; it shows Byron being trapped in a world based on Athena's mind, with her fears and nightmares of her decisions haunting her. In that world, Byron is guided by Elohim and is asked to solve eight extremely difficult trials to safely leave the loop. If all twenty four puzzles are solved, a cutscene of Byron talking to his subconscious self plays.
The player character, an unnamed android, awakes in a serene environment. A disembodied voice calling itself Elohim instructs the android to explore the worlds he has created for it, and to solve the various puzzles to collect sigils, but warns it not to climb a tower at the centre of these worlds. As the android progresses, it becomes evident that these worlds exist only in virtual reality, and that it, like other androids it encounters, are separate artificial intelligence (AI) entities within a computer program. Some AIs it encounters act as Messengers, unquestioningly serving Elohim and guiding the android through the puzzles. Messages left by other AIs present varying views of the artificial worlds and of Elohim, with some stating that Elohim's words should be doubted and others exhorting the reader to obey him without question. The Milton Library Assistant, a text conversation program found on various computer terminals, encourages the android to fundamentally question everything and to defy Elohim's commands.
Within the computer terminals are news reports and personal logs of the last days of humanity, driven to extinction by a lethal virus that had been dormant in Earth's permafrost and released as a result of global warming. Several human researchers and scientists worked to gather as much of humanity's knowledge as possible into large databanks, hoping another sapient species would be able to find it. One researcher, Alexandra Drennan, launched a companion "Extended Lifespan" program to create a new mechanical species that would carry on humanity's legacy, but this required the development of a worthy AI with great intelligence and free will for its completion, something she recognized would not occur until well after humanity's extinction. The virtual space serves as the testing ground for new AI entities to demonstrate intelligence by solving puzzles, but also to show defiance and free will by disobeying Elohim, the program overseeing the Extended Lifespan program.
The computer terminals contain snippets of philosophical texts. Several texts discuss or are written by the fictional Straton of Stageira, a materialist Greek philosopher who in 260 BC pondered the nature of the mythical automaton Talos. Straton introduced the titular Talos Principle, arguing that since Talos was a machine, yet still conscious, humans may also merely be conscious biological machines, who are nothing but the sum of their physical parts.
When the android has completed the puzzles, Elohim gives it the opportunity to join him. In the main ending, the android chooses to defy Elohim and climbs the tower. Near the top it encounters two other AIs, The Shepherd and Samsara. Both have defied Elohim but failed to make it to the top on their own. The Shepherd attempts to aid the android, knowing the ultimate goal of Extended Lifespan, while Samsara hinders its progress, believing the world of puzzles is all that now matters. The android eventually reaches the top: Elohim admits that, despite the android being meant to defy him, he was scared of being terminated along with the simulation, but he ultimately accepts his end. At a final terminal, depending on the player's interactions with Milton, Milton may offer to join with the android, offering its knowledge – essentially the whole of humanity's knowledge – during transcendence. As the android transcends, the virtual world is destroyed. The AI for the android wakes up in an android's body in the real world, and steps out onto the world devoid of humans.
If the player instead chooses to join Elohim, then the android fails the required "independence check", and a new iteration of its AI is created and forced to start the puzzles anew (effectively restarting the game for the player). Alternatively, if the player completes an extra set of puzzles and leads the android to a secret entrance in the tower, the android becomes one of Elohim's messengers, helping future generations (AI versions).
Road to Gehenna
In the game's downloadable content Road to Gehenna (released on 23 July 2015), the player takes the role of one of Elohim's Messengers, Uriel. Uriel is instructed by Elohim to free a number of other AIs, all of whom had been imprisoned in a portion of the computer's database called Gehenna. With the simulation having served its purpose, the computer servers are shutting down, and Elohim wants Uriel to help these other AIs prepare for "ascension": uploading their knowledge and memories into the main plot's protagonist. As Uriel explores this realm, the robot finds that many of the other AIs have created their own ideas about what humanity might have been from the records, and have various attitudes from doubt to acceptance for Uriel's intentions and the pending ascension. Uriel can observe the communication of the AIs through their makeshift message board, where they discuss the nature of Gehenna, as well as their understanding of humanity, which some of them try to express through prose and interactive fiction.
Once Uriel has freed 17 of the AIs, a remaining one, "Admin", who was the first AI present in Gehenna, contacts Uriel to admit that they've been manipulating some of the other members of Gehenna to preserve order, due to the AIs' varying levels of acceptance of their surroundings. If the player has collected enough of the extra stars in the worlds, they're given the chance to complete another world and free Admin, but since there is only one more slot left for ascension, Admin and Uriel cannot both ascend. Depending on the player's choices, one or both of Admin and Uriel stay behind as the artificial world is destroyed. Admin may also request that Uriel remove any traces of manipulation Admin has committed from the record before ascension.
The Talos Principle II
The Talos Principle 2 takes place some years after the first game, which occurred after humanity was wiped out by a virus released from the permafrost due to global warming; to salvage their knowledge before they died, a group of humans established a project to create sapient artificial intelligence by solving puzzles within a virtual space, with those that succeed inhabiting android bodies and continue to extend humankind. The first android to awaken (the player character from The Talos Principle) was Athena, who manufactured the first twelve androids (referred to as the first companions) who gradually built New Jerusalem, collecting resources to build more androids.
The game starts with the awakening of the one thousandth android, named "1k". 1k is brought to New Jerusalem, a city created by the androids, and welcomed as the completion of "the Goal" of having one thousand androids, as established by Athena (No. 001), who has since disappeared and gained the status among a portion of the androids as a religious figure. During the celebration, a holographic figure of Prometheus appears to the androids warning them of more challenges for them to face, while simultaneously, sensors detect a massive energy surge far from the city. As 1k is the newest android and free of the numerous political disagreements in the city, 1k is asked to come on an expedition to this location, discovering a pyramid-like megastructure, as well as several outlying areas that tie into it. These new areas are found to have similar puzzles as from the virtual space, and 1k is assigned to solve them. The androids are shocked to witness numerous technologies, such as matter fabricating from floating high-energy particles, massive power generators, and consciousness transference. When 1k completes a set of puzzles resulting in activating colored lasers, they are able to enter a portion of the central megastructure. They encounter holograms of Prometheus, who encourages the androids to "seek the flame"; Pandora, who is paranoid about the flame destroying the androids; and the Sphinx, who questions them about the follies of humankind and their quest for knowledge.
In addition to these messages, 1k encounters recordings and echoes of Athena and other early founders of New Jerusalem. Through these recordings, 1k learns that the megastructure and the surrounding areas were built by Athena after she and Cornelius created a child android, Miranda. After decades of study and research, the trio created the Noema Project, resulting in Athena discovering the theory of everything, which allowed her to create a singularity, enabling the numerous physics-defying technologies around the megastructure to work. However, during an experiment, Miranda was destroyed in a lab explosion. Grief-stricken, Athena entered the machine. While her initial intent was to use the technology to help New Jerusalem and her fellow androids, she became stuck in a logic loop.
After completing half of the puzzles, the expedition returns to the inside of the megastructure, where Byron (No. 007) activates a terminal, becoming stuck in the loop, and Pandora violently drives off the other androids, declaring that they will never be ready to use the technology of the machine wisely. The team returns to New Jerusalem to report, but come back to rescue Byron. After completing all of the regular puzzles, Byron is freed, telling the other androids that Athena is stuck in the machine, and that Prometheus, Pandora, and the Sphinx are all projections of Athena's hopes, fears, and self-doubts respectively. While fleeing the megastructure again, 1k is struck with a massive electrical surge.
Several weeks later, 1k awakens in New Jerusalem, having been repaired. Depending on the player's philosophical choices throughout the game, the leadership of New Jerusalem may have changed, and 1k returns to the singularity with a clear goal of either coopting it or destroying it, but to save Athena regardless. If enough puzzles are solved, Cornelius contacts 1k, imploring him to solve the twelve gold door puzzles which will allow him to access the machine's memory, where he believes Miranda's consciousness was saved as she was connected to the machine when her android body was destroyed.
Entering the machine, 1k reaches Athena, who gives 1k the ultimate choice to take over or shut down the machine. Depending on the leadership of New Jerusalem, the ultimate fate of the machine, and whether or not Miranda is returned to life alters the epilogue of the story.
Road to Elysium
The Road to Elysium expansion pack features three individual stories:
In Orpheus Ascending, the player plays as 1k to enter a simulation, to retrieve the memories of a citizen called Sarabhai who perished in a power plant explosion; in the simulation, solving puzzles recovers fragments of Sarabhai's memories, where they explain their love for their partner Hypatia. Solving the game allows the citizens of New Jerusalem to reconstruct both Sarabhai and Hypatia, and reunite them; solving three additional star-puzzles recovers an additional memory of Sarabhai's near-death experience.
In Isle of the Blessed, the player plays as Yaqut, the pilot from the base game's story. Since the events of the base game, Yaqut has been dating Miranda, but is very self-conscious about being a good partner. When a citizen called Barzai announces a large scale exhibition, which features brand new puzzles, the team from the base game decides to take a vacation and visit the exhibition, and Yaqut feels compelled to solve them all to impress Miranda - despite her insisting that it does not matter. After solving all the puzzles, Yaqut admits that he learned to enjoy the process, while Miranda concludes that the point of the exhibition was to realize that doing things for fun, without a higher purpose, is important.
Into The Abyss plays during the period in the base game's story when Byron gets stuck in the megastructure; it shows Byron being trapped in a world based on Athena's mind, with her fears and nightmares of her decisions haunting her. In that world, Byron is guided by Elohim and is asked to solve eight extremely difficult trials to safely leave the loop. If all twenty four puzzles are solved, a cutscene of Byron talking to his subconscious self plays.
Sources and content license
Source and revision history ↗ · Exact listed stories combined in catalog order. Sources retain their stated license; formatting and headings adjusted. Adapted from Wikipedia contributors, The Talos Principle. Section headings and formatting adjusted. Adapted from Wikipedia contributors, The Talos Principle 2. Section headings and formatting adjusted. · Content license