Highlights
- Story-driven puzzle games with philosophical themes challenge players to think beyond traditional gaming experiences.
- Some popular examples include The Talos Principle, The Witness, and Manifold Garden, each offering unique puzzles and thought-provoking narratives.
- These games provide players with philosophical dilemmas to ponder, encouraging them to question identity, consciousness, and the human nature.
Story-driven puzzle games might not be as rare as more niche genres like on-rail shooters, but big fans of this genre are easily left wanting more. Imagine, then, being a fan of philosophical story-driven puzzle games. With a genre as specific as this, the problem is simply finding the few existing examples available.
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Video games are a unique medium for telling philosophically loaded stories because, unlike books or movies, they can go one step beyond explaining or showing the idea in question. Through puzzles, players are directly implicated in the dilemma and tasked with finding a solution, one that can be merely provided by the game or offered through a story that properly engages with the puzzles. Not all puzzle-based games rely on elements of philosophy, but those that do are certainly difficult to forget.
7 The Talos Principle
Deals With Themes Of Identity & The Definition Of Life
The Talos Principle might be the most well-known philosophical puzzle game. This first-person puzzler deals with themes of identity and how one can define life and consciousness. The game features an android protagonist guided by a voice that begins the story proclaiming itself a deity.
It also has some solid puzzles to boot. One criticism sometimes aimed at the game is that the puzzles and story aren’t often tied together, meaning that the puzzles don’t organically lead the player to think about the game's themes. That isn’t exactly true, as the revelation of how the two halves are connected happens late in the game, which can make the rest of the title feel a bit meandering. Still, it's a title that's sure to get players thinking.
6 The Witness
Encourages Players To Question Everything
The Witness is arguably only a philosophical puzzle game in the sense that it tries to communicate a complex but abstract idea. Still, it’s one of the most interesting puzzle games out there and one of very few that doesn’t need a tutorial to introduce each new mechanic.
The Witness is the second game released by Johnatan Blow, a renowned developer who also created another beloved puzzle game, Braid. This was one of the original indie games to take the world by storm, and it’s still a solid platformer with interesting themes to take in.
5 Manifold Garden
Promotes Philosophical Thinking Through Puzzles
- Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, iOS
- Released: October 18, 2019
- Developer: William Chyr Studio
- Genre: Puzzle
Manifold Garden might be one of the most unique puzzle games out there. The premise is simple: a first-person exploration game about finding a way forward in a variety of scenarios. But the world of Manifold Garden is unlike any other, at least in video games, feeling like a 3D, walkable version of an Escher painting.
The puzzles in Manifold Garden feel like they have philosophical weight because they require players to think in ways they never thought before. Falling from a level is a great way to move forward since the structures repeat infinitely. Moving forward might mean moving inside one of the megastructures from before, like zooming in on a 2D fractal.
4 The Swapper
Examines The Idea Of Cloning
- Platforms: PC, PS4, PlayStation Vita
- Released: May 30, 2013
- Developer: Facepalm Games
- Genre: Puzzle, Metroidvania
The Swapper is a 2D puzzle game about a space explorer who crash-lands on a deserted planet. The game really starts when the protagonist finds a device with the ability to create clones of the user, which are then controlled in tandem with the real body. Soon, the existence of a “real body” is put into question when the player gains the ability to transfer their consciousness to one of the clones.
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While The Swapper has a story (and a complex one at that), it doesn’t really need words to create an interesting philosophical dilemma. Is making copies of the protagonist really fine when there's no way to know what swapping her consciousness with theirs really means? How about leaving behind the original body? Does that mean anything at all?
3 The Turing Test
Presents Players With A Philosophical Dilemma
The Turing Test is a first-person puzzle game set in the future. The protagonist player takes the role of Ava, an engineer employed by a research facility and space station in orbit around one of Jupiter’s moons. But what seems like a routine repair mission soon evolves into a dilemma that will decide the future of humanity.
The philosophical elements in The Turing Test might be a bit too straightforward for some players, as they are not always integrated into the story. A common criticism is that there’s no reason for the game’s research facility to be so focused on AIs, considering they were studying something very different. Still, the topics discussed are original enough to remain interesting for the whole game. The space station setting is also very unique among philosophical puzzle games.
2 Superliminal
A Puzzle Game About Dreams And Perspectives
Superliminal is a first-person puzzle game about size and perspective. The puzzles, for example, are literally about moving items around and seeing the world from different perspectives. For example, players can make a door look larger and then reshape a key to the right size to open it.
The story is pretty much the same. The protagonist of Superliminal is undergoing innovative dream therapy, which uses the power of dreamscapes to let patients reshape the size of their problems and increase their ability to feel empathy by practicing the use of different perspectives. Soon, the experiment goes wrong, and dreams become nightmares. Still, nothing that a new perspective can’t reduce to a size we can deal with.
1 The Talos Principle 2
Encourages Players To Ponder Ideas Of Humanity
The Talos Principle 2 is, surprisingly, a direct sequel to the original game. This is surprising because, while The Talos Principle had a story, it wasn’t exactly the point. Still, even if the sequel doesn't feature the original protagonist, and it takes off quite a while after the original game’s ending, it still means that potential players should still finish the original before getting started with this one.
If the original game was about the nature of consciousness, The Talos Principle 2 is about finding humanity in ourselves. In a way, this title takes a more direct stance on the significance of those themes, but that doesn’t mean that players can’t come to a different conclusion than the one offered.
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