Confused by the Remaster: A Facelift Without Much Depth

[Dmitry Vorobyev]

I played the demo version of the remaster of the first part (or remake, I'm not sure how they're positioning it). To clarify, I haven't played the second installment yet. I'm left with mixed feelings about revisiting the first part. It feels more like an attempt to "repaint" the old rather than a genuine update. With today's technology, I expected more detailed levels, but instead, it seems like the developers just re-skinned the models with more polygons, added parallax to the textures, made them sharper, and included some new lighting effects.

I didn't notice any additional elements or details. It would have been great to see the levels restructured to take better advantage of modern capabilities. Essentially, what I saw seemed very close to the original, just on a new engine with sharper textures.

I was a bit let down by the lack of interaction between the character and the environment. The grass doesn't bend underfoot, and reflections in water aren't quite right—objects disappear in reflections just as they do when out of sight. Overall, I'm just not quite sure what to make of this product.

[Jonas Kyratzes]

This isn't a re-imagining or a reboot; it's a remaster of the same game, intended to maintain the experience that people fell in love with it. It contains numerous improvements, but drastically changing the level layouts or the puzzles would've gone against what we were trying to achieve. There's plenty of new content (including new puzzles) in In the Beginning, and Road to Gehenna (which many haven't played) is part of the package too, but the core experience is intended to be the same, just smoother and visually updated.

[joridiculous]

"In the Beginning" is a whole new thing right, or is it "prototype"?

[Jonas Kyratzes]

Originally posted by joridiculous:

"In the Beginning" is a whole new thing right, or is it "prototype"?

It's an entirely new story with new puzzles, new VOs, etc., set during an early test of the Simulation.

[joridiculous]

Originally posted by Jonas Kyratzes:

Originally posted by joridiculous:

"In the Beginning" is a whole new thing right, or is it "prototype"?

It's an entirely new story with new puzzles, new VOs, etc., set during an early test of the Simulation.

[Torn up Yarn]

After playing through the demo (which looks very much like the same demo that was for the original version) my guess would be that this is a reimplementation of Talos Principle 1 for the Talos Principle 2 engine (based on Unity instead of being developed in-house) which is sort of meh, with the addition of the ability to create own levels which has the potential to be catalyzing inspiration in the same way that it did for Portal 2 (which was amazing).

[Jonas Kyratzes]

Originally posted by Torn up Yarn:

After playing through the demo (which looks very much like the same demo that was for the original version) my guess would be that this is a reimplementation of Talos Principle 1 for the Talos Principle 2 engine (based on Unity instead of being developed in-house) which is sort of meh, with the addition of the ability to create own levels which has the potential to be catalyzing inspiration in the same way that it did for Portal 2 (which was amazing).

You don't need to guess, we've described it extensively in posts and videos!

It is:

• The Talos Principle & Road to Gehenna remade in Unreal 5
  
• A new chapter, In the Beginning
  
• Various QoL improvements and gameplay fixes but without changing the core experience
  
• Extensive audio commentaries
  
• Puzzle editor

[Razen]

Originally posted by Jonas Kyratzes:

Originally posted by Torn up Yarn:

After playing through the demo (which looks very much like the same demo that was for the original version) my guess would be that this is a reimplementation of Talos Principle 1 for the Talos Principle 2 engine (based on Unity instead of being developed in-house) which is sort of meh, with the addition of the ability to create own levels which has the potential to be catalyzing inspiration in the same way that it did for Portal 2 (which was amazing).

You don't need to guess, we've described it extensively in posts and videos!

It is:

• The Talos Principle & Road to Gehenna remade in Unreal 5
  
• A new chapter, In the Beginning
  
• Various QoL improvements and gameplay fixes but without changing the core experience
  
• Extensive audio commentaries
  
• Puzzle editor

And I personally wouldn't want it any other way. To hear the voice of Elohim was a blast!
This was the game that inspired me to dive deep into philosophy and has shaped and helped me grow a lot. Can't wait to dive back in and experience all of it again but with much better visuals! Keep up the good work guys. You are a fantastic and talented team!

[reznor65]

Originally posted by Razen:

Originally posted by Jonas Kyratzes:

You don't need to guess, we've described it extensively in posts and videos!

It is:

• The Talos Principle & Road to Gehenna remade in Unreal 5
  
• A new chapter, In the Beginning
  
• Various QoL improvements and gameplay fixes but without changing the core experience
  
• Extensive audio commentaries
  
• Puzzle editor

And I personally wouldn't want it any other way. To hear the voice of Elohim was a blast!
This was the game that inspired me to dive deep into philosophy and has shaped and helped me grow a lot. Can't wait to dive back in and experience all of it again but with much better visuals! Keep up the good work guys. You are a fantastic and talented team!

Completely agree. TTP1 is a masterpiece, it does not need to be reimagined or rebooted. When playing the demo, it reminded me of the serenity and beauty of the original, and the tranquility of the music, which I missed in TTP2. Don’t get me wrong, I very much enjoyed TTP2; however, TTP1 will always be a treasured experience for me. I’m looking forward to revisiting this in the remastered edition.

[argoon]

Originally posted by Dmitry Vorobyev:

added parallax to the textures

The original also has parallax in the textures, it uses parallax occlusion mapping.

Originally posted by Dmitry Vorobyev:

what I saw seemed very close to the original, just on a new engine with sharper textures.

That was intention of the devs, this is not a remake is a remaster to make the game look better and more inline with Talos 2.

Originally posted by Dmitry Vorobyev:

reflections in water aren't quite right—objects disappear in reflections just as they do when out of sight.

Yes this is true, reflections in this game (and Talos 2) if playing at low or medium settings, are very ugly, extremely noisy and unstable, this is because the game uses SSR (Screen space reflections) at those settings, this means only what is visible immediately on screen is reflected. I didn't tried the raytraced ones because I don't have a GPU good enough for that.
IMO the original game reflections are way better than this ones, I assume it used planar reflections or cube maps, older techniques that are not realistic but are way more stable for sure.

Originally posted by Torn up Yarn:

based on Unity instead of being developed in-house

This remaster uses Unreal Engine 5 not Unity.
IMO is a petty they abandoned their inhouse engine, serious engine, I liked the cleanness of its graphics, but what is done is done.

[joridiculous]

Originally posted by argoon:

Originally posted by Dmitry Vorobyev:

added parallax to the textures

The original also has parallax in the textures, it uses parallax occlusion mapping.

Originally posted by Dmitry Vorobyev:

what I saw seemed very close to the original, just on a new engine with sharper textures.

That was intention of the devs, this is not a remake is a remaster to make the game look better and more inline with Talos 2.

Originally posted by Dmitry Vorobyev:

reflections in water aren't quite right—objects disappear in reflections just as they do when out of sight.

Yes this is true, reflections in this game (and Talos 2) if playing at low or medium settings, are very ugly, extremely noisy and unstable, this is because the game uses SSR (Screen space reflections) at those settings, this means only what is visible immediately on screen is reflected. I didn't tried the raytraced ones because I don't have a GPU good enough for that.
IMO the original game reflections are way better than this ones, I assume it used planar reflections or cube maps, older techniques that are not realistic but are way more stable for sure.

Originally posted by Torn up Yarn:

based on Unity instead of being developed in-house

This remaster uses Unreal Engine 5 not Unity.
IMO is a petty they abandoned their inhouse engine, serious engine, I liked the cleanness of its graphics, but what is done is done.

It is a Re-Make. They Remake the whole game+DLC+extra level in a new engine. They also change some mechanics, which you don't do with a remaster (with some exception for improvements with controls etc).

Good thing with this remake is they stay pretty close too the original.

[argoon]

Yes you are right, is a remake, now that I thought things through better, I realized a remaster is more if they took the original game and made it look better but using the same engine.
So I stand corrected.