The puppet show just got deadlier
By Paul Hunter
Shadowdropped during the Summer Game Fest weekend, Lies of P: Overture is a $30 downloadable expansion developed by Round8 Studio and published by NEOWIZ. It revisits the dark, puppet-filled world introduced in the base game and picks up where that haunting journey left off. While the original Lies of P surprised many with its confident take on the Soulslike formula, this expansion shifts focus to seasoned gamers ready to test their builds and reflexes in tougher territory.
This time, you're dropped into a new version of Krat that predates the chaos from before. Overture builds on the mechanical foundations of the main game with expanded level design, new enemy types, and fresh bosses that demand quicker decisions and sharper reactions. Story takes the forefront in this DLC, offering a handful of epic boss encounters that stick with you thanks to their emotional punch. The expansion is about ten to twelve hours long, and it’s packed with dense challenges and tough choices.
Overture isn’t meant to be a relaxed return trip. It leans into difficulty by spacing checkpoints farther apart, changing up enemy formations, and even locking access to the new content behind late-game progress in the original story. If you’ve spent hours refining your loadout and enjoy games that push back hard, this might be exactly what you’re looking for.
So, is Lies of P: Overture a worthy continuation of one of 2023’s biggest surprises, or is it just for the most battle-hardened fans of the genre? Let’s find out!
Lies of P: Overture's story takes a unique approach by sending you back in time, before the Puppet Frenzy began. You once again control Gepetto’s puppet, now tasked with meeting the Legendary Stalker and stopping the disaster that led to Krat’s downfall. The narrative doesn’t rely on large plot twists, but there's plenty of lore to dig into. It focuses on immediate goals with clear motivations—the Alchemists are the threat, and your mission is simple: stop them.
Compared to the original game, the storytelling here is more direct and efficient. There’s no need to dig through dense lore or spend hours trying to piece things together. Instead, the DLC uses brief moments—small cutscenes, quick conversations, and environmental storytelling—to move things forward. It gives you the bigger picture without overwhelming you with detail. Overture’s approach lets you stay focused on the action, while still giving context to your actions and the new environments you explore.
Where the expansion really stands out is the new characters with short but memorable arcs. These include a fisherman sharing a drink beside a monstrous catch, and a man stranded in a cave facing his fate. These moments don’t just fill in background—they show how personal stories still matter even during widespread destruction.
Beyond character interactions, the new zones add their own pieces to the world’s backstory. The mutated creatures in the zoo, the remnants of failed experiments in underground labs, and the eerie stillness of a snow-covered ruin all point to events leading up to the original game. These areas reveal fresh lore without dragging you away from the core experience. Instead of raising new questions, they quietly help everything from the base game fall into place.
Lies of P: Overture doesn’t rewrite the story of Krat—it fills in its gaps. With a tighter focus and more direct goals, the expansion sharpens the narrative by showing you the roots of the fall, one twisted scene at a time.
Lies of P: Overture doesn’t reinvent how the game plays at its core, but it absolutely turns up the pressure. This is a tough expansion meant for those who already have a strong build and understand how the systems work. The difficulty goes beyond the final stretch of the base game, with checkpoint spacing and enemy layout adjusted to test your control and resource management.
Combat sticks to what worked before: precise timing, strategic positioning, and reading patterns. But Overture introduces more multi-enemy encounters that demand careful movement. Charging into a room often gets you killed. Taking it slow, checking corners, and pulling enemies from a distance becomes part of your routine. One stretch through a research facility had me weaving between rooms, using ladders and holes in the floor to avoid getting surrounded. That kind of level design is a nice shift from the more linear zones in the base game.
The boss battles are where Overture really pushes the limits. They're fresh, with varied attack styles and surprising mechanics. The balance between dodging, blocking, and parrying still matters, but some bosses add pressure with fast openers or strange arena layouts. One personal moment stood out: it took me over a half dozen tries just to survive the opening minutes of the final boss. Its first combo nearly wiped me every time. Once I figured out its rhythm, finally winning felt more like solving a puzzle than anything else.
New weapons offer strong reasons to experiment. A gunblade with a complex moveset quickly became a favourite, especially once I paired it with an amulet that rewarded dodges with bonus damage. Other additions—like clawed gauntlets or a flamethrower lance—feel different without breaking balance. Even the overpowered weapons you acquire during the DLC doesn’t feel out of place, since challenge is steeper.
New amulets and P-Organ buffs also help tailor your setup further. There’s now more incentive to try different approaches. Boss rematches have been added, and being able to queue them back-to-back makes practising those fights feel efficient. There’s even a new UI feature that shows how close you are to levelling up, making it easier to plan upgrades.
For returning fans looking for a test, Overture delivers. Its changes don’t reinvent the wheel, but they push every mechanic to its limit, and reward you for mastering them.
Overture sticks to the visual identity established in Lies of P, but shifts the tone through varied and often surprising environments. Each location has its own story, told through the layout and background details rather than long cutscenes. You’ll fight through snow-covered ruins, twisted caverns, and a frozen laboratory, with each area feeling different enough to stay interesting throughout the expansion.
The Krat Zoo makes an immediate impression. Mutated creatures claw at their cages, while scattered props hint at what the space once was. It’s a strong opening for the expansion and sets a clear tone. Later zones keep things unpredictable, with a carnival filled with unpredictable puppet enemies and game zones that provide surprising outcomes.
Enemy variety takes a small step forward, though it doesn’t go as far as some might want. You’ll fight new puppet types, reanimated bodies, and a few alchemist enemies, but some of the later fights start to repeat. It’s a minor nitpick, not something that ruins the experience.
Some reused minibosses from the main game return as optional encounters, but the bigger boss battles are all new. They look and sound the part, with splashy introductions that immediately instill fear in you. Certain arenas feel cramped though, and the camera can struggle in tight quarters, especially when using longer weapons.
Audio sticks close to the original style. Music is understated but builds up during boss fights. Environmental sounds help create tension without distracting from what’s happening onscreen. NPC voice acting remains brief but effective, especially during short side quests that leave a strong impression. From a technical standpoint, the expansion runs well and keeps the visual tone that helped define the original game, with just enough new elements to keep things fresh.
Final Score: 9/10 - Amazing
Developer: Neowiz Games, Round8 Studio
Publisher: Neowiz Games
Genre: Action Role-playing, Soulslike
Modes: Single-player
A key was provided by the publisher.
By Paul Hunter
Shadowdropped during the Summer Game Fest weekend, Lies of P: Overture is a $30 downloadable expansion developed by Round8 Studio and published by NEOWIZ. It revisits the dark, puppet-filled world introduced in the base game and picks up where that haunting journey left off. While the original Lies of P surprised many with its confident take on the Soulslike formula, this expansion shifts focus to seasoned gamers ready to test their builds and reflexes in tougher territory.
This time, you're dropped into a new version of Krat that predates the chaos from before. Overture builds on the mechanical foundations of the main game with expanded level design, new enemy types, and fresh bosses that demand quicker decisions and sharper reactions. Story takes the forefront in this DLC, offering a handful of epic boss encounters that stick with you thanks to their emotional punch. The expansion is about ten to twelve hours long, and it’s packed with dense challenges and tough choices.
Overture isn’t meant to be a relaxed return trip. It leans into difficulty by spacing checkpoints farther apart, changing up enemy formations, and even locking access to the new content behind late-game progress in the original story. If you’ve spent hours refining your loadout and enjoy games that push back hard, this might be exactly what you’re looking for.
So, is Lies of P: Overture a worthy continuation of one of 2023’s biggest surprises, or is it just for the most battle-hardened fans of the genre? Let’s find out!
Lies of P: Overture's story takes a unique approach by sending you back in time, before the Puppet Frenzy began. You once again control Gepetto’s puppet, now tasked with meeting the Legendary Stalker and stopping the disaster that led to Krat’s downfall. The narrative doesn’t rely on large plot twists, but there's plenty of lore to dig into. It focuses on immediate goals with clear motivations—the Alchemists are the threat, and your mission is simple: stop them.
Compared to the original game, the storytelling here is more direct and efficient. There’s no need to dig through dense lore or spend hours trying to piece things together. Instead, the DLC uses brief moments—small cutscenes, quick conversations, and environmental storytelling—to move things forward. It gives you the bigger picture without overwhelming you with detail. Overture’s approach lets you stay focused on the action, while still giving context to your actions and the new environments you explore.
Where the expansion really stands out is the new characters with short but memorable arcs. These include a fisherman sharing a drink beside a monstrous catch, and a man stranded in a cave facing his fate. These moments don’t just fill in background—they show how personal stories still matter even during widespread destruction.
Beyond character interactions, the new zones add their own pieces to the world’s backstory. The mutated creatures in the zoo, the remnants of failed experiments in underground labs, and the eerie stillness of a snow-covered ruin all point to events leading up to the original game. These areas reveal fresh lore without dragging you away from the core experience. Instead of raising new questions, they quietly help everything from the base game fall into place.
Lies of P: Overture doesn’t rewrite the story of Krat—it fills in its gaps. With a tighter focus and more direct goals, the expansion sharpens the narrative by showing you the roots of the fall, one twisted scene at a time.
Lies of P: Overture doesn’t reinvent how the game plays at its core, but it absolutely turns up the pressure. This is a tough expansion meant for those who already have a strong build and understand how the systems work. The difficulty goes beyond the final stretch of the base game, with checkpoint spacing and enemy layout adjusted to test your control and resource management.
Combat sticks to what worked before: precise timing, strategic positioning, and reading patterns. But Overture introduces more multi-enemy encounters that demand careful movement. Charging into a room often gets you killed. Taking it slow, checking corners, and pulling enemies from a distance becomes part of your routine. One stretch through a research facility had me weaving between rooms, using ladders and holes in the floor to avoid getting surrounded. That kind of level design is a nice shift from the more linear zones in the base game.
The boss battles are where Overture really pushes the limits. They're fresh, with varied attack styles and surprising mechanics. The balance between dodging, blocking, and parrying still matters, but some bosses add pressure with fast openers or strange arena layouts. One personal moment stood out: it took me over a half dozen tries just to survive the opening minutes of the final boss. Its first combo nearly wiped me every time. Once I figured out its rhythm, finally winning felt more like solving a puzzle than anything else.
New weapons offer strong reasons to experiment. A gunblade with a complex moveset quickly became a favourite, especially once I paired it with an amulet that rewarded dodges with bonus damage. Other additions—like clawed gauntlets or a flamethrower lance—feel different without breaking balance. Even the overpowered weapons you acquire during the DLC doesn’t feel out of place, since challenge is steeper.
New amulets and P-Organ buffs also help tailor your setup further. There’s now more incentive to try different approaches. Boss rematches have been added, and being able to queue them back-to-back makes practising those fights feel efficient. There’s even a new UI feature that shows how close you are to levelling up, making it easier to plan upgrades.
For returning fans looking for a test, Overture delivers. Its changes don’t reinvent the wheel, but they push every mechanic to its limit, and reward you for mastering them.
Overture sticks to the visual identity established in Lies of P, but shifts the tone through varied and often surprising environments. Each location has its own story, told through the layout and background details rather than long cutscenes. You’ll fight through snow-covered ruins, twisted caverns, and a frozen laboratory, with each area feeling different enough to stay interesting throughout the expansion.
The Krat Zoo makes an immediate impression. Mutated creatures claw at their cages, while scattered props hint at what the space once was. It’s a strong opening for the expansion and sets a clear tone. Later zones keep things unpredictable, with a carnival filled with unpredictable puppet enemies and game zones that provide surprising outcomes.
Enemy variety takes a small step forward, though it doesn’t go as far as some might want. You’ll fight new puppet types, reanimated bodies, and a few alchemist enemies, but some of the later fights start to repeat. It’s a minor nitpick, not something that ruins the experience.
Some reused minibosses from the main game return as optional encounters, but the bigger boss battles are all new. They look and sound the part, with splashy introductions that immediately instill fear in you. Certain arenas feel cramped though, and the camera can struggle in tight quarters, especially when using longer weapons.
Audio sticks close to the original style. Music is understated but builds up during boss fights. Environmental sounds help create tension without distracting from what’s happening onscreen. NPC voice acting remains brief but effective, especially during short side quests that leave a strong impression. From a technical standpoint, the expansion runs well and keeps the visual tone that helped define the original game, with just enough new elements to keep things fresh.
The Verdict
Lies of P: Overture builds on the strengths of the original with tighter levels, sharper boss fights, and a more focused story, offering a shorter but meaningful experience. It’s designed for those familiar with the game’s systems, delivering a tough challenge that can sometimes feel overwhelming but mostly remains fair. While there are minor issues like camera quirks and repeated enemies, the new areas and weapons provide enough variety to keep things fresh. For fans of the base game, Overture offers 10+ hours of solid content that shows clear growth from the developers and is well worth the time.Final Score: 9/10 - Amazing
Lies of P Overture details
Platform: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PCDeveloper: Neowiz Games, Round8 Studio
Publisher: Neowiz Games
Genre: Action Role-playing, Soulslike
Modes: Single-player
A key was provided by the publisher.