The Talos Principle: In The Beginning – Dead End Puzzle Guide

The Talos Principle: Reawakened is a remaster with many goodies for veteran fans. Croteam upgraded their original puzzle game classic to Unreal Engine 5, included developer commentary, and added a new expansion called In the Beginning.

The In the Beginning expansion is a huge boon, especially for veteran players, because the 18 puzzles it contains are being regarded as some of the most challenging puzzles in the entire series. Which is both a credit to Croteam and the community, since 16 out of the 18 puzzles were made in collaboration with members of the Talos Principle's community.

Dead End is one of the more complex puzzles in the bunch, but its solution is quite fun to reach. If you want a hint before you continue reading, then I'd say to remember that you're a better wall than a window.

The Talos Principle: In the Beginning - Dead End Puzzle Guide

The minute you start trying to figure out Dead End by connecting lasers to nodes to see what will happen, you'll learn where the puzzle gets its name. Connecting the red laser to the red node, as you walk into the puzzle area, brings up a gate, blocking your way to the rest of the puzzle and forcing you to reset.

Getting both connectors and yourself to the other side of the gate is a simple trick once you realize what it is, though. Once you've gone past it, the rest of the puzzle flows.

Phase One

When you walk into the puzzle area, you'll see a red laser node directly in front of you, a red laser generator to your left, and two connectors on the left side of the space that I'll call C1 and C2 from now on for clarity's sake.

• Grab C1, walk it beyond where the gate will pop up, and connect it to the blue laser and two blue nodes around the corner.

• Grab C2 and connect it to the red laser generator and the red node, making sure you do so while standing directly in the laser's path. This will let you walk across to the other side of the gate without the red laser hitting the node so that you can continue with the puzzle. When you move out of the laser's path, the gate will go up, and the blue laser will connect to C1 and the other two blue nodes, allowing you to move further into the puzzle area where you'll find a third connector (C3) around the corner.

• Use C3 to connect to the blue nodes, but do not connect it to C1. Now that you've created a redundancy between C1 and C3, you can pick up C1 and place it directly in the path of the red laser.

• Once it is in position, flip the switch to the left of C1 to open the gate, and with the red laser still blocked from reaching the red node, you can grab C2.

Phase Two

• Now the easy part. With C2 in hand, walk it around the corner and connect it to the blue laser. Then, grab C1 and continue connecting the laser around the corner while keeping C3 in place.

• With C1 and C2 in place, you can now pick up C3 and connect it to the blue node around the corner. This will disable the shield barrier to the tetromino, completing the puzzle.

That's how you solve Dead End. Like some of the best puzzles, the solution makes it seem easy once you have that 'eureka' moment. It's particularly deceptive because so many of the puzzles in The Talos Principle are more about where the tools each puzzle gives you go. Dead End is a reminder that your robot's physical presence has its puzzle-solving uses beyond picking up and putting down jammers and connectors where they should go, or just standing on pressure switches when needed.

For more on The Talos Principle: Reawakened, check out our review.

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