The Talos Principle: Road To Gehenna Review Summary

High-quality, challenging puzzles and a great-value DLC make it worth playing, but the overly hard star collection, weaker story, and rushed ending disappoint.

Puzzles Are More Challenging: A dominant theme is that puzzles are significantly harder than the base game, often with no easy ones. They are designed for players who have completed the original and offer a steep difficulty curve.

Excellent DLC With Great Value: The DLC is consistently praised as fantastic, high-quality, and well worth its price. It delivers substantial content and is considered a brilliant addition to the original game.

High-Quality Puzzle Design: Many reviewers highlight the puzzles as excellent, well-made, and thoughtfully designed. They are fun, interesting, and stimulate the mind.

Compelling Story and Epilogue: The story is well-written, interesting, and serves as a worthy epilogue that complements the main game's true ending very well.

Creative and Original Puzzles: New puzzles are creative, original, and feel fresh rather than rehashed. They incorporate familiar elements while offering new challenges.

Star Collection Overly Difficult: Collecting stars, especially hidden ones, is extremely hard and often requires guides or unconventional tricks that feel like exploits. Many players struggle to obtain even a few stars without external help.

Story Weaker and Less Engaging: The story is considered simpler, less philosophical, and less engaging than the base game. It lacks the depth, mystery, and literary quotes that made the original compelling.

Disappointing and Rushed Ending: The ending is widely criticized as underwhelming, rushed, or incomplete, with no cinematic payoff. Many players felt the conclusion was abrupt and unsatisfying.

Short DLC and Low Content: The DLC is criticized for being much shorter than the base game, with fewer puzzles and limited new content. Many feel it is overpriced for the amount of gameplay offered.

Burnout and Fatigue with Concept: Many players experience burnout or fatigue with the puzzle concept by the end of the base game, making the expansion feel tedious. Long, difficult puzzles exacerbate this.

Difficulty Much Higher Than Base: The puzzles are significantly more difficult than those in the base game, often assuming completion of the original. Many players note a steep difficulty curve.

Puzzle-Focused DLC Expansion: The DLC is primarily a puzzle expansion, adding many new and challenging puzzles. It expands the base game's puzzle content without introducing new mechanics.

Star Collectibles and Challenges: Stars serve as collectibles and optional challenges. Collecting all stars is required for the true ending and is very challenging.

Story Continuation and Expansion: The DLC continues the story of the base game, adding narrative elements and terminal interactions. It nearly doubles the game length.

Play as Uriel, Messenger of Elohim: Players control Uriel, a messenger of Elohim, sent to rescue souls. This ties into the main game's lore.

Well-Optimized Performance: The game is well optimized, running at 60fps in 4K with mostly Ultra settings and some High. This indicates strong performance across high-end configurations.

Vulkan Better Than OpenGL: The Vulkan backend performs better than the OpenGL backend. Users may experience improved performance when using Vulkan.

Excellent Steam Deck Compatibility: The game runs just as well as the base game on the Steam Deck, providing a smooth portable experience. Users report no significant issues when playing on this device.

Excellent Linux Version: The Linux version is excellent with no problems encountered. It provides a seamless experience for Linux users.

DLC Crash Issues: The DLC crashed during play, indicating a stability problem. This may require a patch to fix.

Must-buy for base game fans: The overwhelming majority of reviewers state that anyone who enjoyed the base game should buy this DLC without hesitation. It is repeatedly described as more of the same quality content and mandatory for fans.

Worth the price: Many reviewers consider the DLC well worth its price, with some suggesting it is an even better value on sale. It is frequently called a steal for the amount of content offered.

Requires completing base game first: Many reviewers strongly warn that this DLC should only be played after finishing the main game, both for story continuity and difficulty reasons. Playing it beforehand is explicitly discouraged.

Recommended despite minor flaws: Overall, reviewers highly recommend the DLC, stating that any cons are outweighed by the pros. It is frequently described as a safe purchase for fans.

Ideal for puzzle game enthusiasts: Fans of logic puzzles and the original Talos Principle highly recommend this expansion. It is described as a must-play for puzzle lovers who want more challenging content.

Community fair range: $9.99 - $14.99.

Game completion: 13.0h.

Story completion: 9.0h.

Endgame: 4.0h.

Road to Gehenna is reported to begin immediately with interesting, difficult puzzles and no tutorial ramp-up; enjoyment is strongest for players who have beaten and enjoyed the main game and mastered its tools.

Friction: No tutorial; High puzzle difficulty; Requires having beaten the main game; Spoils the original game's ending if not played first; Some puzzles require searching for obscure map details and feel tedious.

Unlock drivers: Prior mastery of the original game's puzzle tools; Having completed the main game and wanting more; Enjoyment of The Talos Principle.

Base Game Devotee: Engages in puzzle solving and exploration, expecting similar mechanics and design to the original. Motivation: To continue the experience of the base game with more puzzles and story. Stance: buy.

Hardcore Puzzle Veteran: Seeks out the hardest puzzles, often comparing difficulty to the base game's toughest challenges. Motivation: To overcome extremely difficult puzzles and test their puzzle-solving skills. Stance: buy.

Achievement Completionist: Plays through the game multiple times, often speedrunning, to unlock achievements and maximize completion. Motivation: To earn all achievements, achieve 100% completion, and add another 'perfect game' to their profile. Stance: buy.

Steam Deck: Audit of Steam Deck feedback reveals a playable expansion with minor friction. Users report text-heavy content requiring larger text settings, a minor ASCII art scaling issue when text size is increased, and one report of a prior crash. Linux compatibility is praised as excellent. Overall friction is moderate, requiring adjustments for comfortable play.

Linux and Proton: The available feedback is a single positive French review of the native Linux version. It reports an excellent GNU/Linux experience with no issues and notes that Vulkan performs better than OpenGL as a general performance tip. There is no evidence of Proton, anti-cheat, launcher, crash, or stability problems on Linux.

Monetization: The reviews focus on a paid DLC expansion for The Talos Principle. Feedback concerns puzzle difficulty, DLC value, and platform availability. No review describes real-money in-game purchases, gacha, loot boxes, battle passes, paid power, convenience items, currency obfuscation, or FOMO shops. The DLC is treated as a one-time purchase or expansion, so monetization remains fair under the rubric.

External guides: The reviews center on external guide or walkthrough dependence for puzzle solutions, star collectibles, and 100% completion. Some users found standard puzzles manageable without guides, but the primary friction is learning or finding content, not farming resources, managing inventory, crafting, navigating, or fixing bugs. This matches Tier 3: The Student, resulting in a score of 50.

Substantial DLC content: The DLC adds significant gameplay, roughly 10-20+ hours of new puzzles and story, and is considered as important as the base game. It provides more of the same in a positive way.

Approximately 12-hour playtime: Many players report around 12 hours to complete the DLC, including time stuck on puzzles. Some mention 11 hours with all stars and secret world puzzles.

DLC shorter than base: Several reviewers note that the DLC is much shorter than the main game, with less content overall. This is consistent across multiple clusters.

First and only expansion: This is the first and only story expansion for The Talos Principle, making it a unique addition to the franchise.

Variable playtime with secrets: Completion times vary from about 6 hours to 10+ hours depending on how thoroughly players explore secrets, stars, and read all content.