NEOWIZ took everyone by surprise with Lies of P. The Soulslike game enthralled a lot of fans with its unique setting, which was very loosely inspired by Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio, and its solid Soulslike combat system. The game earned an 8 out of 10 score on Wccftech and quickly became a million seller.
NEOWIZ is working on a sequel, but before that, they are launching a DLC called Overture. Ahead of the expansion's release, slated for this Summer, we caught up with Game Director Choi Ji-won at San Francisco's Game Developers Conference 2025 to learn more.
Lies of P Overture was certainly not what players were expecting after the ending tease from the base game. For those that don't know much about Overture, can you talk a little bit more about that?
First of all, to answer your question, the delay that is shown at the very end of the base game is actually not going to be in Overture. Overture itself, for us, is the completion of the Lies of P game as a whole. It is something that we truly wanted to deliver when we released the base game. It's a sort of continuation of that.
Would you consider releasing Lies of P Overture as a standalone game? The base game just left Game Pass, and there are many customers who are more inclined to buy expansions if they are standalone.
Thank you for bringing that up. It's a good question, but allow me to elaborate on our view. Lies of P Overture is an expansion, but it's not separate. It's an opportunity for us to really complete the Lies of P experience. What this means is that it's almost like a developer's cut. We would not be able to deliver it as a separate product because it's so intertwined with the base game. That's how we want customers to experience Lies of P.
When, during a Lies of P playthrough, will players be able to enjoy Overture?
To be precise, around Chapter 9 is when you'll be able to jump into the world of the expansion.
Is that where the Golden Stargazer is?
I don't remember exactly, but I believe so. There is actually an NPC that explains it.
What level of equipment should players acquire before being able to experience Lies of P Overture?
Once you have gotten to Chapter 9, you will be ready to experience the expansion. But even if you have finished the game completely, you will also have a lot of fun with it.
In the feedback, what did fans talk about wanting to see the most in Overture?
There was a lot of feedback. I would categorize it into three main areas: music, story, and combat. We wanted to ensure all three areas had quality and more content to be introduced, so customers will experience an extension in all three areas. That was difficult.
There were many diverse music tracks in Lies of P. Can you give us some teases about what players can expect to hear in Overture?
Thank you very much for that question. Certainly, there is a lot of interconnectivity between the soundtracks of Overture and the base game. Of course, you'll have to wait to hear it.
Will the cat Spring be important in Lies of P Overture?
Spring is an extremely precious element in the game, so yes.
In the base game, much attention was paid to how the various levels were laid out. They were looping, and secrets were scattered throughout them, but players felt like there weren't many missable secrets. Will Lies of P have more secrets, or will it be similar in this regard?
It's a very interesting question. Yes, you could certainly miss some areas, but you would still experience the game as a whole. We designed Overture so that you would have more adventures to experience.
For players who want to experience those adventures, how is the difficulty in Lies of P Overture going to compare to the base game?
Instead of focusing on setting certain difficulty bars, we focused on what additional fun and diversity of experiences we could add to the game. That's how we approached it philosophically instead of adjusting and setting certain difficulty bars.
Do you have any examples to share of that diversity?
One example is boss fights. Instead of making a boss very, very difficult, we wanted to make boss fights that you haven't experienced before so that it would feel new. I guess that, indirectly, could be related to the difficulty level because it's something new.
Will parrying be as important in Lies of P Overture?
All aspects of combat are very important to us. We wanted to make sure players would be in situations where they could use all these diverse aspects of combat that we have designed.
I asked because, in the base game, there is a very notorious clown boss where players have to learn how to parry; otherwise, they really could not progress further.
Yeah, that's a very good example where players have to learn certain aspects of the game and learn how to get better at them. In fact, that helped us implement fights in the expansion.
One piece of feedback that I've heard a lot from the original game is that the time spent going from a checkpoint to running back to a boss arena was a chore. It was a lot of time spent between new boss tries. Have you addressed that in Overture?
That's also something we definitely heard a lot and took into consideration when designing the expansion.
Some of the Legion Arm weapons, like the Puppet String, were very popular. Are there going to be more of those?
Yeah, certainly. That really is a prime example. We want fans to experience many different things that we provide.
Talking about the length of the experience, can you compare it to certain chapters or maybe just provide an hour count?
Sorry, we cannot be too specific about that because we want them to experience Lies of P Overture without having a set of expectations. But it should be around 15 to 20 hours for experienced players.
Switching topics to the technical side, Lies of P was a very beautiful game and a bit of a showcase for AMD FSR. Will you be implementing the new AMD FSR 4?
For us, the most important things are the user experience and general optimization. We are really putting a lot of effort into these. We cannot go into much detail about the improvements that we are making, but optimization is key.
What is your favorite weapon combination in Lies of P?
I like everything. I am not lying to you: I really like every one of those combinations because they give us different combat flavors.
Thank you for your time.
