Going Hands-On With Lies of P: Overture—Your Springs Are Reacting

When I first saw the announcement trailer for Lies of P: Overture, is was met with mixed emotions. Initially, I was a little disappointed that it wasn't the add-on I was hoping for—if you got the 'Rise of P' secret ending, then you know what I'm talking about. But of course, I was more than happy for more Lies of P content in any way, shape or form, so even base-game DLC is good enough for me.
I honestly didn't realize how much I loved Lies of P, even after the first time I played it. I had gotten reasonably far into it before I wrote my review for it, but—as is the nature of game criticism—other matters took my attention and I didn't really get back to it. That was until last November when I decided to pick it up again and fell so hard back in love that I finished it in under a week.
So I was incredibly fortunate to be invited to LA by Round8 and Neowiz to get an exclusive hands-on first look at Lies of P: Overture. It was a remarkable experience, held at the Paramour Estate—which felt incredibly appropriate to the aesthetic of the game. We were surrounded by antique statues and classic paintings, much like Lies of P and the city of Krat, it felt like we were frozen in a forgotten pocket of time.
At the end of the little greeting room sat a vintage puppet, dressed in P's new winter attire, who was brought to life by a puppeteer—which felt a little against the spirit of the character, but hey, this is real life—and they even recreated a Trinity Room, although I would've loved to have had to solve one of the King of Riddle's brain-teasers to get into it. As we snacked on charcuterie and sipped cocktails, Herman Li took the stage to perform 'Quixotic' and 'Feel' in a shred-metal way that only he could.
It really was an unbelievable event that Round8 and Zebra Partners really put a lot of love and care into, in order to capture the spirit and soul of Lies of P. But once the sun set and the libations were consumed, it was time to step back into the city of Krat. The demo itself was split into two parts: a brief introduction to the new story-driven addition and the 'Battle Memories' boss rematch mode. When I asked what goes into the design philosophy behind Lies of P, not just in its gameplay but its story, Game Director Jiwon Choi said, 'First and foremost, we want you to experience the craftsmanship.'
And this was certainly present in the demo. As was stated by Choi, the new story DLC integrates into the main story around Chapter 9, rather than acting as a direct sequel or post-game story. 'So, when we developed the base game, there was a huge amount of content that we wanted to fit into the base game. Obviously, there are limitations,' Choi said through his translator. He continued, 'So, once that work was complete, we had the opportunity to build the DLC part of it where you could actually bring in many of those elements and content that we couldn't fit into the base game.'
Similar to what was shown in the announcement trailer, the game began with P finding himself in a strange version of Krat, now covered in a blanket of snow and outside the once magnificent Krat Zoo. Gemini informs P that there must be some mistake, as he remembers going to the zoo on a snowy day, before it was reduced to ash and rubble in a great fire—the two have been sent into the past.
'You know, you're well familiar with the Puppet Frenzy, and then how that transpired, and how it transformed creatures or living things…So we want you to be able to kind of guess and imagine how they were before that, and how they are now,' Choi said through his translator. He continued, 'So that you can kind of guess, and that will create sort of an emotional connection for this particular version.'
It was only a small taste, but we got to see some incredible new enemies themed around the haunted managerie. Great apes, Kangaroos and hulking Elephants corrupted by Ergo and twisted into malformed monstrosities. What's more, the demo introduced a new status ailment that was thematically connected to the new setting: Freeze, which not only does damage over time, but slows P's movements.
Thankfully, we had been given plenty of new weapons to deal with these newfound threats. The primary weapon we were equipped with was an honest-to-goodness Gunblade pulled straight out of Final Fantasy VIII. Outside of just looking cool, the weapon itself had a great degree of balance and versatility despite being a weapon that scales with Motivity. Players can combo into a heavy attack that uses a massive gunshot to blast them back—essentially acting as a dodge. However, players can also follow up with a second heavy where P aims backwards and blasts himself forward into a wide-reaching slash.
Some of the other weapons included the bow and arrows shown in the announcement trailer which did take a little getting used to. Despite having a pretty fair range, there was a unique rhythm to attacking that needed to be mastered to keep enemies from closing the distance. One of the more interesting weapons was a massive club with two pinwheels that acted like sawblades. With every swing and dodge, the pinwheels spun faster, allowing for more hits. And despite being a fairly large weapon with a pretty big windup, this weapon scales with Technique, which will certainly make things interesting for more nimble players.
And of course, there were P's new Puppet Arms. The first one, aptly named Icarus, allowed P to throw out up to five boomerang-like blades that could be charged and spin in a single spot, dealing massive damage to enemies. The second, named Cataclysm, was an arm-mounted Elephant Gun that P could charge for a devastating blast to blow back enemies or deal immense damage. This was a real risk vs. reward kind of arm since the charge time was pretty substantial, but the trade-off was certainly worth it.
The second part of the demo, the aforementioned 'Battle Memories,' gave us a taste of the newest feature coming to Lies of P via an upcoming patch: selectable difficulty. This game looks to be the first of its kind—a Soulslike with difficulty , what a concept. I say this as a joke, but one of the questions that was asked of Choi specifically referenced how certain gamers take umbrage with the idea of difficulty options in Soulslikes, and how Lies of P would approach such a concept.
Choi essentially said the reason they're making Lies of P: Overture more accessible is that there are a lot of people who love the game, but don't really enjoy it because of the difficulty, saying, 'So, I felt really bad about that. On the other hand, we do a lot of tests with the developers, but there are people who can't do it because of their skills, so we adjust the balance and do tests.'
As to how difficult options would affect the game, Choi's answer was interesting, without giving too much away, saying, 'For that very purpose, actually…we kind of hid the overall kind of elements of that so that you don't immediately see the details of the difficulty.' He continued, 'It's not just simply higher HP or difficulty. We wanted to make sure with the variety of different play styles, the different characters, you enjoy the game in different ways.'
What these changes may or may not be, I honestly couldn't say at this time. When I sat down to attempt the three new bosses that were made available to us for the demo, out of the five selectable difficulties, I played them on Difficulty Three—being the Hardcore Gamer™ that I am. My interest wasn't so much in the raw difficulty of these bosses, but in their style and substance, and they definitely didn't disappoint.
Ranging from a quick and nimble Alchemist whose weapon was an angelic puppet tethered to her by a string of light, a hulking behemoth with a club made of bones who would enter an enraged state with expanded movesets and much more aggressive attack timing, and lastly a goliath monster that was a twisted amalgam of a human using both weapons and its colossal size to deal devastating damage.
While the bosses in the Lies of P main game leaned more towards robotic enemies that were thematically appropriate for the story and setting, this small glimpse at some of the new opponents not only felt appropriate for the DLC but showcased a lot of the creativity and capacity that the creators have for this game. 'I focused a lot on expressing the romantic memories that we have from the main episode in a completely different way,' Choi said.
While the demo was as brief as the trip itself, Lies of P: Overture looks to be as sizable and resonant as the main game itself. The love and care the team put into crafting both an in-person and gameplay experience shows just how meaningful this game is to them, and how much they want a wide variety of gamers to experience its beautiful and brutal world.
Lies of P: Overture is set to release in the Summer of 2025.

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Tom's Guide

6 days ago

• Tom's Guide

Lies of P: Overture is a massive expansion for one of my favorite PS5 games — and it's absolutely brutal

2023 was considered a pretty phenomenal year for video games. The likes of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Resident Evil 4 remake, Baldur's Gate 3 and Marvel's Spider-Man 2 all duked it out for the majority of GOTY awards (Spidey ultimately won ours). While I thoroughly enjoyed all of those titles, my personal pick for the best game of the year was Lies of P. And after all this time, I stand by it. This action-Souls-like shamelessly cribs from the works of genre-originator FromSoftware, and feels a lot like the Bloodborne sequel we all want, but Sony frustratingly refuses to actually give us (Please, Sony, even a remaster will do). I loved almost every moment of my 60 hours spent with Lies of P across two playthroughs (one on PS5, the other on Steam Deck OLED), and that playtime just increased thanks to its meaty new DLC expansion. Called Lies of P: Overture, it offers you the chance to return to the gothic city of Krat and square off against a new range of tough bosses that will do their very best to cut you down. In a nutshell, Overture is more of the brilliant Lies of P experience I love, but with the difficulty ramped up to 11. Lies of P: Overture: $29 @ PlayStation StoreLies of: Overture is the new DLC expansion for 2023's critically acclaimed action-Soulslike Lies of P. Adding around 15 hours of new content, you explore a past version of the city of Krat, and take on very challenging bosses. To help you fight back against the numerous tricky foes, you get access to a suite of new weapons and powerful abilities. Additional platforms: $29 @ Steam | $29 @ Xbox Store In Lies of P: Overture, you once again play as Geppetto's deadly puppet and are tasked with exploring the nightmare city of Krat. The wrinkle is that this time, you've stepped into the past to experience the striking location before the events of the base game. But it's certainly no more welcoming in this period. The Puppet Frenzy massacre, the aftermath of which you encounter in the base game, is currently ongoing, dropping you into the thick of a city in complete turmoil with chaotic scenes of violence and blue blood all around. So, where do you go first? The Zoo, of course. Overture's opening takes you to Krat Zoo, and it might just be my favorite level in all of Lies of P. Fighting back against deformed animals from aggressive ages, to a truly twisted type of kangaroo, sees the body-horror, which was already a strong theme in Lies of P, ramped up to new grotesque levels. And the first major boss fight, an oversized crocodile, is an absolutely doozy. Later DLC locations like an underground facility and a cavernous mine are less visually dynamic, but the final two of Overture's five chapters do occur in more visually distinctive settings (which I won't spoil here). So, the DLC starts and ends strong, with a slightly mundane middle. The core game's fast-paced combat is maintained, which is a very good thing, because outside of the works of FromSoftware, Lies of P offers the best Soulslike gameplay I've ever played. Though, for the record, I still suck at parrying, so the dodge button remains my best friend. Perhaps the DLC's biggest addition is its numerous lore implications and revelations. I'm far from a Lies of P scholar, but I was constantly finding hidden notes that had me rethinking what I thought I knew about the Lies of P universe and the characters within it. If you enjoyed the well-told story of the base game, you're going to love what you learn here. Alongside the new levels to explore, there's also a bunch of useful new weapons to pick up, new gear to wear and powerful legion arms, including my personal favorite, which lets you shoot spinning sawblades from your wrist. Adding around 10-15 hours of new content, Lies of P: Overture is solid value for money at its $29 price. But fair warning, prepare for a tough time. If I have one substantial criticism of Lies of P: Overture, it's that developer Neowiz has gone a little too far in its efforts to make this DLC the hardest content in the game to date. As part of the Soulslike subgenre, Lies of P was always a tough game by design. And that's part of the reason I loved it so much. Few feelings are better in gaming than slaying a testing boss after dozens of attempts. And some of the base game bosses rank as my favorite ever in the genre. In fact, it's not Overture's bosses where the overtuned difficulty can be felt. Aside from one late-game dud, these named DLC combatants are mostly brilliant. The last boss in particular gives Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree a run for its money. Finally bringing them down had me leaping from my chair in satisfaction after they had torn my face off for almost an hour. The problem arises in the various open spaces, corridors and choke points between bosses. Regular enemy mobs have had their health pools and damage-dealing abilities seriously beefed up, and even my max-level weapons often felt like merely smacking a raging puppet with a pool noodle. Overture also appears to have taken cues from the divisive Dark Souls 2, as not only are standard enemies extremely overpowered, they're also thrown at you in sometimes ludicrous quantities. I'm taking crammed rooms that contain an enemy count in the double digits. This leads to numerous sections that are a complete slog to play as you regularly find yourself swarmed by enemies that can send you to an early grave in just a few hits, and that take a practically silly amount of damage to be defeated. These moments see Lies of P: Overture fall on the wrong side of the fine line between frustration and fun. To somewhat counteract this issue, Lies of P: Overture's launch has coincided with a major free upgrade that adds two new difficulty options to the game. One is marked as essentially easy, the other very easy. Of course, for dedicated Souls players, dropping the difficulty is antithetical to why the genre appeals; the struggle is supposed to be part of the experience. I should warn any new players hoping these new difficulty settings might allow them to breeze through the game, and enjoy the excellent world-building and rich lore, even on the simplest setting, Lies of P: Overture still puts up a real fight. You will need some skill, whatever level you play on. Overall, Lies of P: Overture has given me the perfect excuse to return to one of my favorite games of this current gaming generation. It's a largely well-crafted expansion with some intriguing new locations to explore, and some tough but tantalizing new bosses to overcome. I just wish the supposedly "regular" enemies didn't always hit with the force of a turbocharged monster truck. However, after rolling credits on Overture, my itch for more Lies of P remains burning, which is perhaps its biggest accomplishment. I was already desperate for the already-confirmed full sequel, and after experiencing Lies of P: Overture, that wait is going to feel just a little bit longer.

Yahoo

13-06-2025

• Yahoo

Lies of P: Overture Will Be 'Reviewing' DLC Following Player Difficulty Challenges

Neowiz and the development team behind Lies of P: Overture have released a response to fan struggles with the DLC add-on, and the director promises he will 'review various adjustments' following complaints. Neowiz and the development team behind Lies of P: Overture surprised fans everywhere with a shadow drop during the SGF 2025 showcase. Since then, fans have taken to the internet —similar to how fans took to the internet following the release of Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree— to complain about unfair difficulty and challenges the DLC brings. On forums like Reddit (which has now been aggregated into a 'megathread' due to the sheer amount of complaints), fans started by having reservations regarding a difficulty option and after deploying these options in practice, intense fan backlash followed on the painful difficulty spike brought by Overture. Elden Ring fans followed a similar path. On release, Shadow of the Erdtree fans initially complained there was a way to make the game 'easier' with Scadutree Fragments until realizing the DLC brought big difficulty enhancements. All of the fan complaints boil down to what one user, MagicThiccWaku, says: 'I think the DLC is hard in all the wrong places, no reactionary attacks, mistakes are far too punishing and fights last for so long.' Many players have also explained on NG+ base game enemies become nightmarish and finish players in 1-2 hits. After this immense backlash to the Overture DLC difficulty, a video from director Jiwon Choi titled 'Lies of P: Director's Letter' appeared in response. That video can be seen below. In the video, Jiwan Choi expressed his heartfelt thanks to fans who are so passionate about Lies of P and has addressed the issues facing DLC difficulty. He said 'We're reviewing all of it carefully and are already looking into when to implement some of your suggestions,' adding 'Among all the feedback, we are paying the closest attention to the combat experience.' Choi continued 'We identified areas that did not turn out quite as we intended,' then 'Therefore, we are reviewing various adjustments, including difficulty reduction.' Choi concluded, 'However, combat is one of the most fundamental experiences in Lies of P, so any modifications or changes require meticulous work and thorough testing.' While Overture is put through testing and a patch is being paid attention to, struggling fans should note the development team is working on fixing the problems plaguing the experience and fixes should come in due time.

Yahoo

10-06-2025

• Yahoo

Susan Choi Recommends a Book So Engrossing It Made Her (Almost) Lose Her Luggage

"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Welcome to Shelf Life, books column, in which authors share their most memorable reads. Whether you're on the hunt for a book to console you, move you profoundly, or make you laugh, consider a recommendation from the writers in our series, who, like you (since you're here), love books. Perhaps one of their favorite titles will become one of yours, too. What began as a short story in The New Yorker is now Susan Choi's sixth and latest novel, Flashlight, about a man who goes missing—and the resulting trauma for his family. Like the family in the book, Choi lived in Japan for a short period during her childhood. (Nor is this the first time she's shared autobiographical details with her characters: Her father was a math professor, like a character in 2003's A Person of Interest; she went to graduate school, the setting of 2013's My Education; and she attended a theater program in high school, as do the protagonists in 2019's National Book Award-winning Trust Exercise, for which she wrote at least 3 different endings.) Her second novel, 2004's American Woman, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and adapted into a film, and she has also written a children's book, Camp Tiger. Choi teaches in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, yet one literary goal remains elusive: 'Trying to read 50 books a year,' she says. 'I've never achieved the goal and some years I don't even come close, but I love trying.' The Indiana-born, Texas-raised, New York-based bestselling author studied literature at Yale University; was once fired from a literary agency for being too much of a 'literary snob'; was a fact-checker at The New Yorker and co-edited Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker with editor David Remnick; won an ASME Award for Fiction for 'The Whale Mother' in Harper's Magazine; and has two sons. Likes: theater; fabric stores; kintsugi; the Fort Greene Park Greenmarket; savory buns; flowers. Dislikes: being on stage; low-hovering helicopters. Good at: rocking her gray hair. Bad at: cleaning menorahs; coming up with book titles. Scroll through the reads she recommends below. It's not exactly a missed-the-train moment, but I was re-reading Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov while waiting on a train platform [once], and when the train pulled in I stood up, still reading, boarded the train, still reading, and sat down, still reading…until at some point, after the train pulled away, I realized that I had left my luggage on the platform. Philip Roth's Everyman. I never would have thought a novel about the bodily decline and eventual death of a hyper-masculine Jewish guy who mistreats many of the women in his life—a lot like Philip Roth—could make me literally heave-sob at the end. But this is why Roth is such an incredible writer: He makes us feel enormous compassion for people we don't even like. Jenny Erpenbeck's Visitation, which kaleidoscopically compresses the stormy history of 20th-century Germany into barely a hundred pages, while holding the focus steady on a single plot of land. It's one of those books that makes you want to write. All of Proust. Or even just some decent amount of Proust. I love the prose but also find it so exquisite it's almost unbearable to continue reading for any length of time, at least for me, which makes me feel like a total failure as a reader. I might have to set aside a year of my life just to read Proust. Sarah Moss's Ghost Wall is impossible to put down, and it's also so tensely coiled from the very beginning that reading it I sometimes forgot to breathe! In some ways it's a 'small' story—about a girl and her parents doing a crazy-seeming reenactment of prehistoric life in the English countryside—but then it turns out to be about the biggest things, like what it means to be a people, or a nation, or even human. Rachel Khong's Real Americans, which I am so riveted by that as soon as I finish these questions, I'm picking it back up. It's a story about three people who, despite how deeply they feel for each other—and how deeply we feel for them—cannot manage to be a family. My heart is already half-broken and I'm only halfway through it. Paul Beatty's The Sellout. I was sitting on the beach in Maui (the one time I have ever been to Maui), reading that book instead of swimming, and a stranger came up to me to ask what it was because apparently I was laughing so hard I'd attracted general attention. In Francisco Goldman's The Ordinary Seaman, two young guerilla fighters, boy and girl, fall madly in love and start having trysts in the back of an ambulance. The girl also has a pet squirrel that she's been carrying around in her bra, and, during the trysts, the squirrel runs frantically around the back of the ambulance. These are some of the funniest, wildest, most heartfelt sex scenes ever put on paper. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I read it every few years because it feels new every time and, at the same time, it feels so familiar, like returning to a favorite place. I love every single sentence in it, even the sentences that are totally over-the-top (and there are a lot of them!) because they remind me that Fitzgerald was actually a fallible human being, capable of writing very over-the-top sentences sometimes. Sigrid Nunez's A Feather on the Breath of God shocked me the first time I read it because it really felt like the book was looking at me, like it knew exactly who I was. The protagonist has, like me, a real culture-clash background, and up to the point in my life when I read the book—the '90s—I'd never encountered that in fiction, so it was very emotional when I finally did. Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie. Just read it. You'll thank me. Renee Gladman is one of my absolute favorite living writers/artists, yet I was totally unaware of her until maybe six years ago when I was recommended her work by an employee—I am so sorry I don't know his name—at my local indie bookstore. Now it feels unimaginable to me that I ever lived my life without Renee Gladman! Everything by Ali Smith, and Ali Smith herself. She is such a brilliant, compassionate, elating observer of us humans and the strange things we do. The London Library. A friend who's a member showed it to me a few years ago, and I never wanted to leave. Maybe they'll set up a hammock for me! PEN America, because they support freedom of expression, which none of us can take for granted anymore.$14.40 at at at at at at at at at at You Might Also Like The 15 Best Organic And Clean Shampoos For Any And All Hair Types 100 Gifts That Are $50 Or Under (And Look Way More Expensive Than They Actually Are)