When comparing The Talos Principle vs Total War: Warhammer, the Slant community recommends The Talos Principle for most people. In the question“What are the best singleplayer games on Steam?” The Talos Principle is ranked 7th while Total War: Warhammer is ranked 140th. The most important reason people chose The Talos Principle is:
The puzzles in the game are great, but they're tied together with a thought provoking story line filled with mystery and intrigue. A story about a robot with human consciousness who is being guided by a disembodied voice, are they to be trusted? As the story progresses the player is drip fed clues which can lead them closer to the truth.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Great storyline
The puzzles in the game are great, but they're tied together with a thought provoking story line filled with mystery and intrigue. A story about a robot with human consciousness who is being guided by a disembodied voice, are they to be trusted? As the story progresses the player is drip fed clues which can lead them closer to the truth.
Pro Lots of side content
Many Easter eggs and more difficult puzzles as well as an ending in many parts of the game, as well as hidden lore.
Pro Difficulty ramp-up
Starts out easy enough, but gets to some truly difficult puzzles by the end. If you get stuck on a puzzle you can skip it and come back to it later.
Pro Rewards exploration and out-of-the-box thinking
It's hard to explain this without spoiling anything, but there are lots of "aha!" moments you will encounter on the areas if you get invested into the story, making the game deeper.
Pro Great original soundtrack
The soundtrack is very pleasant to listen to and fits perfectly with all the areas and themes present in the game. It varies from calm music, for those heavenly areas where you are solving puzzles, to more misterious and epic pieces for moments when things get... real. It's good to have some nice music playing while your brain is melting from solving the puzzles, or just appreciating the scenery.
Pro Gives players the ability to customize their generals and heroes
TW:W gives players the chance to customize the abilities of their chosen legendary lord, generals and even heroes through a detailed skill tree. Skills vary from individual character skills usable in battles (such as spells) to passive skills which influence army movement in the campaign map.
Pro Great setting
Being based around the Warhammer tabletop fantasy world allows for an in depth game with tons lore behind it. Fighting off vampires and zombies are just some of the things to be found in the game.
Pro Tons of replayability
Thanks to the different factions available in the game, the player has a lot of choice as to how they would like to play, which gives a lot of replayability. There are five different campaigns available (four in the game and one as DLC) that each has its own faction to control and set story, which will take quite a bit of time to each be experience to their complete endings.
Cons
Con Working with the level editor is difficult (no documentation)
There is not much documentation for the level editor in the game, as the creators primarily use it for themselves. There are of course many hotkeys you could accidentally press as well.
Con Obtuse puzzles, especially with optional content
Mediocre game design all around. Many puzzles are ordered badly or redundant and could have been combined or removed to smoothen the experience, as well as occasionally not exercising the bounds of certain elements (like ranged pickup). The game's optional content is even more worrisome as it often leads you to play hidden object games to look in hundreds of corners instead of using more difficult puzzles. One particularly egregious example is when you have to interpret a message in a very specific way after using a decryption algorithm you may not know about into another questionable input system.
Con Only four factions are available in the base game
There are only four factions are available without DLCs (The Empire, Vampire Counts, Greenskins and Dwarfes). Other playable races and factions are currently being released periodically as DLCs.
Con Maps can feel constrained
Due to the compartmentalizing of factions and which land they can take over means that the games maps can feel smaller than they appear since only certain sections can be played on.