In 2021, Round 8 and NEOWIZ announced Lies of P, a moody soulslike that answered the question that no one had thought to ask: What if Bloodborne was actually a Victorian reimagining of Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio? When it launched in 2023, it surprised skeptics and over-delivered in both how great its dark fantasy setting was and how incredibly fun its aggressive combat was. Two years later, I got to spend some quality time with Overture, the ironically-named encore of an expansion to the hit action game. And even though I didn’t get to see much more than around an hour of the first stage and the new Boss Memories mode, it was apparent very quickly that the South Korean team is poised to overachieve yet again.
Overture is a prequel to the events of Lies of P, right before the puppet frenzy starts and robotic thralls massacre everyone in the city of Krat. But as it turns out, many of its ideas for settings, weapons, etc. were actually meant for the base game, but got cut to keep the original release from being too bloated. Round 8 studio Game Director Jiwon Choi told IGN in an interview that he and his team weren’t content with letting these ideas go undeveloped and unrealized. Through a translator, he described Lies of P as finally “complete” with the addition of Overture.
Lies of P has always been associated with Bloodborne, mostly because of how it looks but also because combat in both games adheres to soulslike traditions but forgo key behaviors like blocking. Even releasing a big DLC well after launch to put a bow on the original project has become a FromSoftware signature at this point. But Choi’s team embraces the comparison. “It is our honor [to be compared to FromSoftware].” He added that it motivates them to make something that can clear that high bar of expectation and they can only hope that they did with Lies of P, and will continue to do so in Overture.
The first steps you take back in the boots of the titular character, P, is into the snow-packed region around the Krat Zoo, a building your disembodied guide, Gemini, seems very confused to see standing and not a pile of embers. Story details are light, and the developers are staying tight lipped about anything we haven't seen so far. After some preamble from your lantern cricket, it was very difficult not to spend a couple of seconds swinging around one of the brand new weapons in Overture: a gunblade that looks exactly like the kind Squall Leonheart would get commissioned for himself. This was one of a few new weapon types I chopped my way through this frozen menagerie with, on top of new weapons from existing types, and a pair of new, very cool, legion arms that did very different, yet very effective kinds of asskicking.
The Pale Knight, as the gunblade’s called, was my main weapon against the ergo-poisoned monsters both on the outskirts of the zoo and within its walls. It has the weight and attack pattern similar to a greatsword, but its heavy attack pulls the trigger and the double barrel firearm attached sends lead screaming at foes. The recoil of these shots push P around, so it can be useful when mixed into attack strings to remain evasive. A trick I learned far too late in my demo is that you can actually fire the weapon again to rocket yourself back towards the bad guys for a big follow-up attack. So basically, it's the coolest weapon ever made.
Another new weapon type I dabbled with is the bow, the first completely ranged weapon in the series. It felt perfect for poking smaller enemies from afar but pretty incapable of making a reasonable mark on larger foes. I think with time there’s probably a way to exploit its perfect draw mechanic to menace all sorts of baddies from down range, but I couldn’t manage it in the hour I had. Another new weapon type I wish I spent more time with were a pair of long claws that shredded enemies with the kind of fury that is usually reserved for Best There Is At What He Does. This didn’t scratch the surface of weapons I glossed over that were clearly new additions to existing weapon types, but it was abundantly clear to me that people who really love the weapon customization aspect of the base game will have a lot of new toys to mash together in Overture.
The new legion arms I tried out also made great additions to P’s kit. My favorite was yet another gun: double-barrelled and chargeable to moderate the kind of force, spread, and impact on the bad guys. It’s a more close-ranged option, but even at half charge it made short work of the fodder that roamed around the snowy grounds or dilapidated halls of the zoo itself. At full charge, it was a reliable tool to stun bigger foes or at least interrupt their bevy of attacks for a second. I came to the second arm late in the demo, but it was certainly a strong offensive option in its own right. It launched blades that would swirl around enemies for a short time, similar to the throwable saw blade item, with two differences. One, it can fire multiple blades at once to do some significant damage over time on one target, and two, with a quick press of a button before releasing the flying blade, you can change the attack completely to a set of blades that dance around P instead, great for doing solid AOE damage.
Speaking of targets, the cast of enemies in this section was pretty unremarkable outside in the beginning of the level, but got very interesting as we got deeper into the zone. Some bitey wolves and grabby zombies were run of the mill, but standouts like some very angry kangaroos and an ergo-plagued elephant with a Resident Evil-style surprise really wowed me. I spent so much time against the latter that I only just made it to the end of the level to see the boss: an enormous crocodile twisted by ergo.
On that note, bosses will get a new focus in the patch for the base game that will accompany Overture with two new game modes: Battle Memories and Death March. Death March is a straight up boss rush, allowing you to make a playlist of at least 3 bosses and attempt to take them down all in one go. Battle Memories, meanwhile, allows you to return to old boss fights and attempt to beat them again, now in up to five different tiers of difficulty, with each tier increasing some unique stats that these bosses gain in this mode. Rewards for conquering these tiers have been hinted at, but not elaborated on. I went back to one of the old bosses, the Black Rabbit Brotherhood, to see how different it was on tier 3 than my memory of them in the base game. The way they beat me and my rusty fingers to death didn’t point out any real differences, but as with the rest of Lies of P, I'm sure teasing out the mystery comes with lots of experimentation.
Lies of P was one of the standout games of 2023, and among the best games in its action RPG subgenre not made by FromSoftware. Overture doesn’t play with the formula too much, but I found that the new ingredients it added, like the great new weapon types and fabulously freaky monsters, proved that there's never really too much of a good thing, even if it is largely the same thing.
