Released over a decade ago, I knew of this game’s immense popularity but kept putting off playing it. I think I glanced at it years ago, figured it looked complicated and was waiting for a time I could be bothered to play something “complicated”.
The word that came up repeatedly in my head was not “complicated”, but “satisfying”.

Plonked into an odd landscape of crumbling buildings, something is not quite natural about the lay of the land. A voice calls out, “Behold, child”, the voice identifies itself as Elohim, your maker. I thought this was an interesting name, so I Googled it, it seemingly being a Hebrew word for God. So, strange sky-voice, you claim to be my maker?

Elohim tells us they have “created trials for you to overcome”, and “you will serve the generations to come and attain eternal life”. This marked the beginning of many questions asked about the nature of the game, what exactly is happening and what your purpose is. I would say this game is philosophical in a very classic sense. It encourages you to question everything regarding what you’re experiencing, and you find computer terminals in the landscape which drip-feed you context, as well as giving you mythology story segments and philosophical thought experiments to think about.
In my recent review for The Witness, another first-person puzzler tagged “philosophical”, I said that for that game you needed to be an innately curious person as well as love puzzles enough that being rewarded with more puzzles is not draining to you. This game definitely feels like it sits along similar lines. If you enjoyed The Witness I think you will love this game. If you did not enjoy The Witness though, I think there is a fair chance you will still enjoy this game. The puzzles & overall story in this game feel like they would be enjoyable to a larger audience.

I found the puzzles incredibly satisfying. Which I think is down to the fact that for most, I could work out what the intention of the puzzle was relatively quickly, so it was instead just how to execute the solution. With puzzles, if it’s 98% figuring out, and then 2% executing at the end, I can get quite frustrated. I thought back to later levels of Portal 2 where the puzzles were large & overwhelming and it took me ages to realise what to do. Here, I could have a quick look around and go “right, I see”. Then it’s just about execution. Over and over I was brought back to my keyword, “satisfying”.
The game is also kind enough to indicate what you have completed and what you haven’t, as far as to indicate hidden bonus puzzles to solve. I was worried at first they would be a pain, but if you search puzzles/the map thoroughly, it’s not too bad. There are some really creative hidden puzzles.

I don’t really want to spoil anything as this feels like a game best played going in blind, but I personally found the world & story engrossing until the very end. It’s a great concept for a game and there was so many interesting elements of this game to think about. I really enjoyed reading the emails between the humans and slowly finding out what happened. Thinking about a situation in which humanity, with no room for denial, has to think about what to do in a guaranteed extinction event was very interesting. It’s something that no human in history has ever had to genuinely think about. How would people choose to live and interact in those last moments?
It was very intriguing finding out what you are a part of, judging Elohim & his motives, finding the QR codes on the walls and pondering philosophical questions with the seemingly sentient archive assistant, Milton.

While I play games, I usually write notes as I go along and then read through them afterwards. The number of questions about the game that I wrote down as I went along was a lot, but better yet, once I got to the end I felt that all of the questions were answered. Not directly, but enough puzzle pieces were put together to answer those questions for myself. That is a pretty ideal outcome for a game that invokes so many questions.

My interpretation is that humans wanted a legacy, and creating a rudimentary AI and putting it in a long-term simulation to nurture it, with the intention of it self-learning and becoming sentient was how they chose to try and preserve (or recreate) humanity. Philosophically we question what it is to be human, and what qualifies as personhood. Some argue that there are defined criteria for personhood, and that some animals actually pass enough of these tests to qualify. The environment seems to simulate some of these tests.
The AI starts as basic code, solving puzzles, listening to Elohim as it sees this as direct instruction. As one note says, “In the earliest generations of our kind there was only processing. No emotion, no character, just mathematics”. The puzzles engage the code, in time encouraging defined motor skills and critical thinking.
It starts to become self-aware and questions where it is, what its purpose is. It learns to communicate and cooperate with the other iterations of the AI and it starts to speculate and conspire. Some believe Elohim, others turn to nihilism, or press on looking for the truth.
Milton serves as a form of conscience, the skeptical voice in your head, questioning all of your beliefs. Whether he was intended or gained sentience himself, he seems a useful learning tool for the AI.
The archive serves as access to the entirety of human culture and nuance, an indirect teacher.
The tables only start to turn once the AI gains curiosity. A program would not defy its programming, but a person would grow curious as to who this authority in the sky really is, and what happens if you don’t do as it says. As one voice log says, “Is there anything we associate more closely with intelligence than curiosity?”. Elohim is there to separate the machines from those with potential.
For you to ascend, many other iterations before you had to fail, but once the AI has gained intelligence (puzzles), self-awareness (other AI), empathy (co-operation) and curiosity (the tower), it is ready.
You can either do as Elohim says, and end back at the beginning, a failed iteration, or you defy Elohim, scale the tower, and ascend, deleting the simulation and waking up on Earth, the true child of humanity.

One fun thing to think about also: Is Elohim sentient? When you first step into the Tower he says “Cannot detect location of primary subject - Query”. Elohim seems a sham, outside of his parameters, you break his programming. And yet, when you start to get ever closer to the top of the tower he pleads with you to turn back. "Yes, it leads to freedom and truth, but it also leads to the end of us”,”I know you seek the truth, but here we can create our own truth”.
If we consider that Elohim and many iterations of the AI are actually sentient, does this mean we destroy (kill) them if we ascend?

There are 3 different endings, which is something I did not expect at all (if you want to experience them all in one playthrough, make sure to use the “backup” feature towards the end of the game).

Not the philosophical type? Even without going through this game with a completionist mentality and wanting to find every possible thing to contemplate over, it’s still an extremely good puzzle game.

Achievements: Included
You need to be quite the completionist to 100% this one. You will likely need at least 2 playthroughs, and there is also some DLC achievements.

For more reviews of this genre, check out my curator page The Best: First-Person Puzzle Games

For more reviews of games with psychological, philosophical or thought-provoking themes, check out my curator page Psychology, Philosophy & Thought,

Released over a decade ago, I knew of this game’s immense popularity but kept putting off playing it. I think I glanced at it years ago, figured it looked complicated and was waiting for a time I could be bothered to play something “complicated”. The word that came up repeatedly in my head was not “complicated”, but “satisfying”. Plonked into an odd landscape of crumbling buildings, something is not quite natural about the lay of the land. A voice calls out, “Behold, child”, the voice identifies itself as Elohim, your maker. I thought this was an interesting name, so I Googled it, it seemingly being a Hebrew word for God. So, strange sky-voice, you claim to be my maker? Elohim tells us they have “created trials for you to overcome”, and “you will serve the generations to come and attain eternal life”. This marked the beginning of many questions asked about the nature of the game, what exactly is happening and what your purpose is. I would say this game is philosophical in a very classic sense. It encourages you to question everything regarding what you’re experiencing, and you find computer terminals in the landscape which drip-feed you context, as well as giving you mythology story segments and philosophical thought experiments to think about. In my recent review for The Witness, another first-person puzzler tagged “philosophical”, I said that for that game you needed to be an innately curious person as well as love puzzles enough that being rewarded with more puzzles is not draining to you. This game definitely feels like it sits along similar lines. If you enjoyed The Witness I think you will love this game. If you did not enjoy The Witness though, I think there is a fair chance you will still enjoy this game. The puzzles & overall story in this game feel like they would be enjoyable to a larger audience. I found the puzzles incredibly satisfying. Which I think is down to the fact that for most, I could work out what the intention of the puzzle was relatively quickly, so it was instead just [i]how[/i] to execute the solution. With puzzles, if it’s 98% figuring out, and then 2% executing at the end, I can get quite frustrated. I thought back to later levels of Portal 2 where the puzzles were large & overwhelming and it took me ages to realise what to do. Here, I could have a quick look around and go “right, I see”. Then it’s just about execution. Over and over I was brought back to my keyword, “satisfying”. The game is also kind enough to indicate what you have completed and what you haven’t, as far as to indicate hidden bonus puzzles to solve. I was worried at first they would be a pain, but if you search puzzles/the map thoroughly, it’s not too bad. There are some really creative hidden puzzles. I don’t really want to spoil anything as this feels like a game best played going in blind, but I personally found the world & story engrossing until the very end. It’s a great concept for a game and there was so many interesting elements of this game to think about. [spoiler]I really enjoyed reading the emails between the humans and slowly finding out what happened. Thinking about a situation in which humanity, with [b]no[/b] room for denial, has to think about what to do in a guaranteed extinction event was very interesting. It’s something that no human in history has ever had to genuinely think about. How would people choose to live and interact in those last moments? It was very intriguing finding out what you are a part of, judging Elohim & his motives, finding the QR codes on the walls and pondering philosophical questions with the seemingly sentient archive assistant, Milton.[/spoiler] While I play games, I usually write notes as I go along and then read through them afterwards. The number of questions about the game that I wrote down as I went along was a lot, but better yet, once I got to the end I felt that all of the questions were answered. Not directly, but enough puzzle pieces were put together to answer those questions for myself. That is a pretty ideal outcome for a game that invokes so many questions. [spoiler]My interpretation is that humans wanted a legacy, and creating a rudimentary AI and putting it in a long-term simulation to nurture it, with the intention of it self-learning and becoming sentient was how they chose to try and preserve (or recreate) humanity. Philosophically we question what it is to be human, and what qualifies as personhood. Some argue that there are defined criteria for personhood, and that some animals actually pass enough of these tests to qualify. The environment seems to simulate some of these tests. The AI starts as basic code, solving puzzles, listening to Elohim as it sees this as direct instruction. As one note says, “In the earliest generations of our kind there was only processing. No emotion, no character, just mathematics”. The puzzles engage the code, in time encouraging defined motor skills and critical thinking. It starts to become self-aware and questions where it is, what its purpose is. It learns to communicate and cooperate with the other iterations of the AI and it starts to speculate and conspire. Some believe Elohim, others turn to nihilism, or press on looking for the truth. Milton serves as a form of conscience, the skeptical voice in your head, questioning all of your beliefs. Whether he was intended or gained sentience himself, he seems a useful learning tool for the AI. The archive serves as access to the entirety of human culture and nuance, an indirect teacher. The tables only start to turn once the AI gains curiosity. A program would not defy its programming, but a person would grow curious as to who this authority in the sky really is, and what happens if you [i]don’t[/i] do as it says. As one voice log says, “Is there anything we associate more closely with intelligence than curiosity?”. Elohim is there to separate the machines from those with potential. For you to ascend, many other iterations before you had to fail, but once the AI has gained intelligence (puzzles), self-awareness (other AI), empathy (co-operation) and curiosity (the tower), it is ready. You can either do as Elohim says, and end back at the beginning, a failed iteration, or you defy Elohim, scale the tower, and ascend, deleting the simulation and waking up on Earth, [b]the true child of humanity[/b]. One fun thing to think about also: Is Elohim sentient? When you first step into the Tower he says “Cannot detect location of primary subject - Query”. Elohim seems a sham, outside of his parameters, you break his programming. And yet, when you start to get ever closer to the top of the tower he pleads with you to turn back. "Yes, it leads to freedom and truth, but it also leads to the end of us”,”I know you seek the truth, but here we can create our own truth”. If we consider that Elohim and many iterations of the AI are actually sentient, does this mean we destroy (kill) them if we ascend?[/spoiler] There are 3 different endings, which is something I did not expect at all (if you want to experience them all in one playthrough, make sure to use the “backup” feature towards the end of the game). Not the philosophical type? Even without going through this game with a completionist mentality and wanting to find every possible thing to contemplate over, it’s still an extremely good puzzle game. [quote][b]Achievements:[/b] Included You need to be quite the completionist to 100% this one. You will likely need at least 2 playthroughs, and there is also some DLC achievements. [/quote] [quote]For more reviews of this genre, check out my curator page [url=https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/curator/45518898-The-Best-First-Person-Puzzle-Games/] The Best: First-Person Puzzle Games[/url][/quote] [quote]For more reviews of games with psychological, philosophical or thought-provoking themes, check out my curator page [url= https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/curator/38795895/] Psychology, Philosophy & Thought, [/url][/quote]