New Lies Of P Trailers Show Off Clockwork Combat And A Dark Fantasy World

Lies of P releases soon, and ahead of the launch of this dark and twisted adaptation of the tale of Pinocchio, two new videos for the game have gone live. In the first video, which is a deep dive into the making of the game, director Jiwon Choi explains how the project came together.

According to Choi, developer Round8 Studio wanted to create a game that focused on its Souls-like combat and story equally. “In order to leave a striking impression on our players, we believed that we must deliver an equally striking story that grabs their attention,” Choi said. “It occurred to me that we should utilize a well-known story, and turn that story on its head. I decided to choose The Adventures of Pinocchio because it’s full of compelling characters and events. But in order to make our game unique, we completely recreated the story into a dark and mysterious one. A story based on Krat, a fictional city, plagued with a petrification disease.”

This tweak to the Pinocchio story has resulted in several other characters from the books being reimagined, with one notable example being the four black rabbits. In the original story, the rabbits are undertakers who work for death, but in Lies of P, they’re reintroduced as a group of assassins. As for combat, Choi explained that the studio aimed to create a realistic and detailed action system that exists alongside an in-depth system of character growth.

For example, Lies of P has a weapon combination system that allows for new combinations of weapons to be created with different functions and characteristics. Because P is a robotic puppet, he can also replace and enhance his mechanical Legion arm, which Choi says will create a “much more dynamic” combat experience. There’s also the P-Organ system that allows for different skills to be obtained, essentially giving players their very own growth tree to invest in and build to suit their individual preferences.

As for the actual challenge that players can expect, Choi explained that the studio has “minimized all variables” by eliminating a difficulty adjuster system. Instead, Lies of P will have several difficulty options, and as players grow in strength and skill, they’ll be able to calibrate the challenge accordingly.

The rest of the video contains more details on the art direction chosen for the game, which pulls from the Bell Epoque era’s rich and stylized golden age but puts a dark spin on that aesthetic. You can also get a preview of the technology being used to craft the game, with the game engine having support for Nividia’s DLSS and AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution.

In a second video, you can also gain more insight into one of the characters that you’ll meet in the game, Sophia. Voiced by Allegra Marland (The Crown), Sophia is described as a guide who feeds P with information to help him along his journey. While Sophia is based on the character of the Blue Fairy from the Pinocchio stories, she has more “angelic” and “goddess-like” qualities, according to Marland.

Lies of P is scheduled to release on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S in 2023, and as announced at Gamescom, it will also be included on Xbox Game Pass.