2023’s Lies of P is undoubtedly one of the best Soulslikes there is. It’s a fantastic Bloodborne-alike with a unique, almost dreamlike aesthetic, and it plunders a familiar tale in new ways, offering a dark fantasy spin on Pinocchio. After a year and a half, Lies of P: Overture offers a sizeable slice of extra gameplay and, perhaps crucially, a couple of new difficulty modes.
Lies of P wasn’t necessarily the hardest Soulslike around when it released, and in fact it was often quite easy-going when you were just exploring its world, and only really twisted the screws with some of the boss fights which were, without exaggeration, some of the toughest in the genre. Lies of P: Overture comes with a patch that adds two easier difficulties, ensuring that its original default difficulty is now the hardest. In the base game the difference is staggering, but in the new Overture DLC, I didn’t notice it as much.
Cast into a period from P’s past, Overture sees you traversing a snow-covered wonderland that swaps clockwork baddies for huge beasts, some of which absolutely knocked me for six. A couple of the new bosses were also a pretty tall order on the default difficulty, so being able to reduce the challenge was a welcome option.
Being a prequel to the original game, Lies of P: Overture could easily stand on its own, which makes it all the more odd that you can’t just load into it from the title screen. You’ll instead have to be in or past Chapter 9 of the story before you can travel into the DLC via a Stargazer checkpoint. Once into it, you’ll find a completely new set of NPCs with all new problems in a story that feels more whimsical but somehow no less grim than the main campaign.
The new areas are great though, continuing the incredible level of visual storytelling we saw in the main story. Right away the snowy hills feel very removed, and there’s a section in a zoo that evokes memories of the museum in the original but with even more disturbing enemies.
Perhaps it’s on me but I was hoping to see some new weapon types that shake up the standard animations or perhaps added a different nuance to the combat. We do get a pair of claw-like weapons that feel very on-brand, but Lies of P’s deliberately stiff combat can’t quite make good use of them. There is a new shotgun-style Legion Arm though, which I did feel fit the combat very well. Better than the new Bow weapon, at least, which I couldn’t quite get the hang of as part of my standard arsenal.
What Lies of P: Overture does very well was ultimately done very well already by the base game, but that’s hardly a failing. The DLC could easily be plucked out and forced to stand on its own two feet, but I don’t think it matters. Pursuing the mysterious Stalker as she hunts down Romeo feels both urgent and tragic, even though the story itself feels a bit messy and doesn’t really lend itself fully to the Soulslike template.
While Overture adds a handful of new NPCs in the Hotel (notably you can still upgrade and disassemble weapons without the usual gang), I felt the story itself struggled to establish a sense of real place. Gemini seems to exist only to remind you that you’re playing through a prequel, and some of the “no one left behind” storytelling threatened to break the immersion once or twice.
That all being said, even if this DLC was just more of the same, I’d still welcome it. The original is one of my favourite games of recent years and even with a few minor missteps, Lies of P: Overture does a fantastic job in not only bringing us new characters and new challenges, but also new levels of accessibility at the same time.
