Lies of P

Lies of P
Developer(s)	Neowiz Games Round8 Studio
Publisher(s)	Neowiz Games
Director(s)	Choi Ji-Won
Engine	Unreal Engine 4
Platform(s)	PlayStation 4 PlayStation 5 Windows macOS Xbox One Xbox Series X/S
Release	September 19, 2023
Genre(s)	Action role-playing
Mode(s)	Single-player

Lies of P is a Soulslike action role-playing video game developed by Neowiz Games and Round8 Studio, and published by Neowiz Games. The game was released for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Windows, macOS on September 18,^[1][2] and PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5 on September 19, 2023.^[3] It is loosely based on the 1883 Italian novel The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi.

Lies of P received generally positive reviews from critics and had sold one million units by October 2023. Downloadable content and a sequel have since been announced.^[4][5]

Gameplay[edit]

Lies of P is played from a third-person perspective. The player controls the humanoid Pinocchio and travels on foot through the city of Krat, exploring the environment and fighting various biomechanical enemies. Pinocchio uses an arsenal of weapons such as swords and axes against his enemies and can dodge and block their blows. The game also includes "Fable Arts", a gauge that can be filled by dealing damage or perfectly blocking, which, once its filled, can be used to deal high damage or temporarily give the player passive abilities. Pinocchio has a mechanical arm called "Legion Arm" that can be equipped with gadgets, such as a grappling hook to lure enemies or a flamethrower. The Legion Arm can be used to restore the durability of the player's weapon, and also give it special abilities for a short time such as acid damage or guaranteed perfect blocks. The weapon and crafting system offers 30 different weapon types with 100 combinations, as well as "Special Weapons" which can be obtained after killing a boss. The game features a "Lying System", where the decisions the player makes during certain passages affect the course of events, leading to three different endings.^[6]

The gameplay of Lies of P has been called "soulslike" and compared to that of Dark Souls, Bloodborne,^[7] and Sekiro.^[8]

Plot[edit]

Setting[edit]

Inspired by Carlo Collodi's novel The Adventures of Pinocchio, Lies of P tells the story of Pinocchio, a special puppet who differs from other puppets in his ability to lie, which plays a role during important story decisions.

Puppets, robotic automatons designed for labor and security tasks, were invented in the city of Krat thanks to the discovery of a revolutionary power source called Ergo underneath it. Powered by Ergo, they soon became ubiquitous throughout the city. Foremost among puppet inventors are the wealthy industrialist Lorenzini Venigni and the legendary Geppetto, who created Pinocchio. In order to ensure that puppets would not be a threat, they were bound to the Grand Covenant, a set of built-in directives which forbid them from lying or attacking humans. Puppets have their own language, which consists of blurred English text that becomes visible during boss fights against enemy puppets.

Krat also suffers from the mysterious and incurable Petrification Disease, which blinds its victims before turning them into stone from the inside out, slowly killing them.

Synopsis[edit]

Pinocchio awakens onboard an abandoned train at Krat Central Station, discovering that the city in the aftermath of the "Puppet Frenzy:" the mechanical workforce has somehow rebelled against the Grand Covenant and slaughtered most of the human population. Pinocchio eventually makes his way to Hotel Krat, where some survivors have taken shelter, including a mysterious woman named Sophia, a young eastern weapons maker named Eugénie, the hotel's owner Lady Antonia, and her loyal puppet butler Polendina. Sophia informs Pinocchio that he must find Geppetto: the only person who knows how to stop the puppet revolt. She then gives Pinocchio a lantern containing a cricket named Gemini to guide him on his quest.

As Pinocchio explores Krat, he battles both puppets and Stalkers: animal-masked human mercenaries, many of whom who have gone insane and kill any puppet on sight. Two such people are the Red Fox and Black Cat, who watch over Pinocchio. Others include the infamous "Hound of Krat" Alidoro, a treasure hunter, and a hostile gang called the Black Rabbit Brotherhood. He also fights Carcasses. citizens who were mutated by the Petrification Disease into inhuman monsters. Eventually, he manages to find Geppetto, who informs him that the puppets are being driven mad by the King of Puppets, a giant puppet controlling them through their Ergo. Pinocchio hunts down the Puppet King and destroys it, greatly weakening the rogue puppets. Geppetto then instructs Pinocchio to find the Alchemists, who have allegedly created a cure for the Petrification Disease. However, when Pinocchio heads out to meet them, he is instead attacked by mutated humans who became cyborgs. The Alchemists' leader, Simon Manus, boasts that the Alchemists have managed to exploit the Petrification Disease for their own ends, using it to accelerate human evolution and create the monsters spreading throughout Krat. He also reveals that Ergo is created from humans and is the physical embodiment of their memories and life force.

Pinocchio makes his way back to Hotel Krat, only to find that Simon and the Stalkers attacked the hotel and kidnapped Geppetto. He commandeers a submarine to reach Simon's base on the Isle of Alchemists. Fighting his way into Simon's castle, he finds Sophia's real body heavily mutated from exposure to Ergo; the Sophia he encountered before was an illusion created by her disembodied soul. She pleads for Pinocchio to end her suffering, and he has a choice of whether to let her live or give her peace. Pinocchio continues to fight his way through the castle and Simon's minions before confronting Simon himself, who has infused himself with the Ergo of all the bosses that Pinocchio has fought so far and become a godlike being. Pinocchio defeats him and reunites with Geppetto, who promises to use the Ergo that Simon collected to turn Pinocchio into a human. However, he must hand over his mechanical heart to complete the process.

• If Pinocchio gives Geppetto his heart, he dies as Geppetto uses the heart to revive his deceased son Carlo. Geppetto then has Carlo murder all of the survivors in Hotel Krat before leaving the city with him. This unlocks a post game secret where Geppetto has turned the survivors into puppets that repeat the phrase: "Your wish is my command Sir Carlo, what would you like to do?". A letter he left behind reveals he wants to "stabilize" Krat by converting citizens into puppets to prevent the spread of the Petrification Disease and make the city safe for Carlo.
• If Pinocchio gained enough humanity from telling lies and performing several other actions throughout the game, he can refuse to give his heart instead. Geppetto angrily activates the powerful Nameless Puppet to take the heart by force. However, its control strings are severed during the fight and it becomes too aggressive; when it aims for Pinocchio's heart, Geppetto sacrifices himself to protect it allowing Pinocchio to rip out the puppet's core. Depending on Pinocchio's choice after finding Sophia, one of two different endings can occur:
  • If Pinocchio let Sophia live, Geppetto bitterly calls him a useless puppet before dying.
  • If Pinocchio gave Sophia peace, he sheds a tear for Geppetto, who upon seeing this apologizes to Pinocchio as his son before dying; later that day, Pinocchio transfers Sophia's Ergo into a puppet replica of her to revive her and collapses in her arms, where she smiles upon seeing him again.

Over the course of the game, it is revealed that Carlo had died of the Petrification Disease before the events of the game. Geppetto created the mechanical heart using his son's own Ergo, but Carlo's body, converted into the Nameless Puppet, was too powerful for the heart unless it first absorbed enormous amounts of Ergo. Thus, using "Law Zero" a hidden supreme directive in the Grand Covenant giving him control of all puppets, Geppetto himself instigated the Frenzy to collect the population's Ergo. The King of Puppets had, in fact, tried to rebel against Geppetto to protect the humans; the King was originally Carlo's childhood friend, Romeo, and one of Geppetto's first experiments with resurrection.

In a post credits scene, a man named Philippus Paracelsus, posing as a merchant called Giangio, reports the results of the "Krat experiment" to a superior. He explains that Pinocchio may hold one of the keys to eternal life, and that he will continue the search for another key, Dorothy. Back in Krat, a girl wearing red shoes is seen on the rooftops, and clicks her heels three times.

Development and release[edit]

Lies of P was announced on May 19, 2021, by South Korean publisher NeoWiz. During Gamescom 2022, a gameplay trailer was shown and it was announced that it would be released on Xbox Game Pass at launch.^[9] 11 minutes of 4K gameplay footage premiered at the Game Developers Conference in March 2023.^[10]

Director Choi Ji-Won states the game has been in development for about three years.^[11] The studio chose to theme the game around Pinocchio to appeal to a wider fanbase. Choi Ji-Won notes that the original story has a "dark" tone and "diverse backgrounds" that the staff could use.^[12] They chose to set the game in a Belle Époque-like environment to "encapsulate a city's transformation from opulence to ruin" and convey "a period of unparalleled cultural and artistic prosperity, yet severe darkness and negativity".^[13]

On June 19, 2023, a collaboration with Team Ninja's Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty was announced, which will allow Wo Long players to use Lies of P weapons as part of a DLC package on September 27, 2023, and allow Lies of P players to use free cosmetics and a new weapon.^[14][15] On November 14 2023, a Patch update and the game's official soundtrack was released on Steam.^[16]

Reception[edit]

Lies of P received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator website Metacritic.^[35]

Famitsu reviewers praised the game, noting its difficulty.^[23] Ashida from Famitsu commented that the game is similar to the original Dark Souls. He also noted his frustration with how short the player character's attacks are compared to those of the enemies. Meanwhile, Honma and Uchisawa mentioned that the game pays homage to Bloodborne. They praised the humorous enemy puppets and the customizability of the player's weapons.^[23]

Sales[edit]

Lies of P sold one million units by October 2023.^[36]

Awards[edit]

The game won the "Best Action Adventure Game", "Most Wanted Sony PlayStation", and "Best Role Playing Game" at the Gamescom 2022 Awards.^[37]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Official website