The Talos Principle writer promises it won't be a "horrible edutainment borefest"

The Talos Principle's developer bills the game as a " philosophical first-person puzzle game ," and it's being co-written, along with Penumbra writer Tom Jubert, by Jonas Kyratzes, the creator of The Infinite Ocean , "a sci-fi adventure about sentience, freedom and the search for truth." It sounds like a sure-fire recipe for an intellectually heavy journey of introspection and self-discovery, but Kyratzes says players won't have to wander down that garden path if they don't want to.

"The Talos Principle engages fairly directly with a variety of philosophical concepts. The title itself refers to a philosophical principle that is explained within the game, and the story is very much intended to make you consider the great questions of life," Kyratzes told NowGamer, doing what I could call a not-particularly-good job of selling people on the idea that The Talos Principle can be played as a fairly straightforward puzzle-adventure. But he insisted that it will neither test the player's knowledge of philosophy, nor try to impress them with its own.

"We just think that science fiction is particularly good at dealing with the difficult questions that face us both as individuals and as a species," he said. "These topics are worth thinking about—but they're also interesting and fun."

If that's not your bag, that's okay, too. "It's really up to the player. If you want to dig down into the story, figure out what's going on, you can do that, and I think it will be rewarding," he said. "If you'd rather just solve puzzles in a surreal environment, you can do that too, and you'll still have an interesting journey."

To get a better feel for where that journey will lead, have a look at our video of The Talos Principle being played, poorly, right here. The Talos Principle comes out later this year.