At the Game Developers Conference last week, members of the team behind Lies of P: Overture were set up in a space that looked like an environment from the game. Iron Horse Cocktails, a bar near the Moscone Center that houses GDC’s panels and appointments, looks like it could just as easily be located within Hotel Krat.
Imagine exposed brick, chocolate brown wood, bright chandeliers, stained glass, red light illuminating the liquor, and wall-mounted lamps set in dark metal. It was a much better place than a busy convention floor to sit down with the game’s director, Jiwon Choi, to talk about the 2023 soulslike’s forthcoming expansion.
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The mood was all tied together thanks to Lies of P’s soundtrack pumping through the speakers, with that familiar Victrola-esque crackle. I was surprised when Jiwon said that Neowiz saw music as being as essential to Lies of P as it was to the mood for our meeting at Iron Horse.
A Little Krat Music
“The three really important aspects of Lies of P [are]: story, music and, of course, combat,” Jiwon said through a translator. “When you deliver the story, the music plays a significant role in really guiding the users, or persuading the users to understand the story better. So it’s a very integral part.”
Jiwon says the team is aiming to deliver on all of those aspects in Overture, and that the team was inspired by the base game’s feedback to go above and beyond. Neowiz wants to give the fans exactly what they want.
“We don’t expect surprise from the fans, but more of an ‘Ah,’ he says. “The relief that, after all, the developers of Lies of P knew what we were waiting for.”
If you’re one of those fans, we should get to a few fast facts. Lies of P: Overture will take 15-20 hours for a “well-experienced veteran” of the game to complete. It will continue to build on the Pinocchio-inspired system of truth and lies introduced in the base game. Some have speculated that the expansion might have co-op, but Jiwon says that isn’t the case.
“We had to really focus on delivering a premium single-player game experience. So it really didn’t come to us in a way that incorporating something like co-op was something that we could do. It wasn’t part of the scope. But moving forward, I think we are definitely open to considering that because we have more time.”
Why Is Lies Of P: Overture DLC?
It will use its status as a prequel, Jiwon says, to provide “more clarity into what led to the Puppet Frenzy which is the massacre that is the backdrop of the Lies of P base game.” Lea, the legendary stalker alluded to in the base game, will play a very important role in Overture. And the DLC can be accessed “seamlessly” from chapter nine.
Speaking of which, Neowiz opted to make and distribute Overture as DLC that requires the base game to play given that — like standalone spin-offs Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy — it’s long enough to be sold on its own. Why not sell it separately for more potential players?
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“When we were developing Lies of P: Overture, we really didn’t separate the content in that part of the game from the base game,” Jiwon says. “We were looking at the whole project as a sort of total combination of the Lies of P experience.”
Given that the base game teased a sequel (seemingly inspired by The Wizard of Oz) and that Jiwon has stated that a sequel is in the works, I wondered if work on Overture had given the team ideas for the next outing.
“That happens constantly. And that’s not just about developing the expansion, I always have that experience when I’m developing the base game as well,” Jiwon says. “I’m constantly iterating and having that kind of inspirations, and lists of things to do. It will all be accumulated into our next project.”
We may be waiting a while to see how those ideas come together in the sequel. But Lies of P: Overture is set for a summer 2025 release.
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