Nightdive as usual does a fantastic job in polishing up all the shortcomings that came with the original release while retaining everything that made it good on the first place. The large, open levels full of secrets and exploration, the large weapon variety, the stellar enemy animations, the eerie atmosphere. Mand I don't envy the people who had to beat this on the original N64 with the limited speed/draw distance and almost no guides. By modern FPS standards this game can be bloody confusing and cryptic with its stage design and by the time I got to the final boss, I was less thrilled and more exhausted. If you want to check a cult chapter of 90's video gaming, this version is the one to go for.

Essentially “Master Levels for The Talos Principle”. While the amount of puzzles it offers up isn’t big, it cuts the fat from the first third of the base game and offers up some of the most rousing and difficult challenges that mechanics were only starting to mingle with, and these puzzles never felt too easy or hard. The tradeoff of the great lore and worldbuilding in the original is a more active plot that hearkens back to message boards in days of yore that will be a nostalgia bomb for anyone active on that stage of the internet. While there’s some great characterization, I wish it played into gameplay more instead of just being like “hey, you’re the dude I was talking to on the boards” after the child program blankly looks at you after freeing them and runs away.

I do wish there was more of a variety in settings of levels, as they are just basically bigger setpieces from the Greek, Egyptian, and medieval European landscapes from the first game. The closest we come is the hub area, which still doesn’t feel all that disconnected from the hub area in the base game.

Definitely a must-play for those thirsty for more after beating the base game.