Lies of P Review – Korean Souls Copy of Steelrising ?

Lies of P, the Korean Dark Souls with elements of Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio story.

The version I am reviewing today is 1.5.0.0 (no DLC).

Steelrising Was Never "Trash"

Just to be clear... This review is not about Steelrising — it's all about Lies of P!

Still, I'd like to point out that I wasn't the only player to find it strange that both games shared the same inspiration...

I've seen a few messages from players trying to unearth the truth on the subject, and I've come across discussions... or, I should rather say, "arguments" on Steam. Because whenever someone asked questions, they were usually met with harsh comments like "Steelrising was trash, because it was made by a trash team of devs".

The problem with these kinds of insulting answers...

1. They try to dismiss all the qualities of the other game without any real arguments...
2. And it becomes even more suspicious, because that's exactly the kind of behavior we show when we're guilty...

Because I've played and completed both games, and even if Steelrising is FAR from the quality of Lies of P, it's absolutely NOT trash! I wouldn't have spent 50 hours on it (the same I spent on Lies of P) if it were. What I liked in Steelrising was re-exploring previous levels once my avatar had found 3 tools/abilities: the Hook to reach higher platforms, the Jump to access previously unreachable paths, and the Fist to blast walls and open new routes! 😎

So enough about the fight between these 2 games, because I highly recommend every player try both 😍

Anyway, as you can see below, the 2 avatars are quite different!

And they also use very different engines: Steelrising runs on a tweaked version of PhyreEngine (Spiders call it the "Silk Engine"), whereas Lies of P uses Unreal Engine 4. So even on this front, the match is Not Fair 😜 since Unreal is far more optimized and detailed.

Timothée Chalamet (Lies of P) on the left and... a real puppet (Steelrising) on the right 😅

I remember when I played Steelrising, the high-definition texture pack required more than the 12GB of VRAM on my RTX 4070 Ti 🤨 That's crazy, when you consider that I could display all the high textures in Lies of P AND get twice the FPS, even with Ray Tracing enabled... Unfortunately, the early release and poor optimization killed Steelrising.

⚔ PLAYER BUFF AVAILABLE ⚔

Partner link · Lien partenaire

The Perfect Guard: Dark Souls Meets Sekiro

Now, as I said at the beginning, Lies of P is a mix between Dark Souls and Sekiro.

• You can't stay in parry mode all the time with a huge stamina build, because there are simply NO 100% defense shields in Lies of P... Actually, there are NO shields at all 😆 So whenever you parry, it's with your weapon!
• And every Dark Souls player knows that when you parry with a weapon, you still take a % of the damage...
• That's why the game encourages you to Perfect Guard! That means pressing the parry button at the exact moment the blow lands, in order to cancel all damage. (A bit like QTE games such as the ancestor Dragon's Lair.)

And that's where the difficulty lies... You really have to learn the patterns of each enemy, particularly the bosses, who will wipe you in 3 hits if you simply stay in parry mode or dodge like crazy. You can easily Perfect Guard a single blow, but when a boss goes for a combo of 4 hits with a final delayed strike... trust me, the first time, you're going to die! 😅

Here is the first real boss of Lies of P, where you'll have to rely on Perfect Guard to survive!

You know, at first, during the tutorial, when the game told me about the Perfect Guard... I was like "screw it, I'll just dodge my way out". And you can dodge, to an extent... But once the boss battles arrive, you understand very fast that you'll have to play by the rules, and learn to time your parry! Otherwise, most boss fights will be impossible...

And believe me... it's very rewarding to win a fight where you managed to Perfect Guard a combo of 4 or 5 hits! The good thing is that the "bonfire" — or "Stargazer," as it's called in Lies of P — is always right next to the boss. So you won't have to do a 5-10 minute run every time you die, like in Demon's Souls... but of course, in Demon's Souls, the bosses were easier 😏

This can be compared to Steelrising... where, unfortunately, only 3 bosses reached "Dark Souls difficulty"...

These two above are bosses in Steelrising... and most of them could be beaten on the first try! 🤨

Actually, that's what I liked the most in Lies of P...

1. The boss battles in Lies of P sort of "interrupt your rhythm"... You know, all the enemies on the way to a boss can be dealt with easily enough — okay, some mini-bosses are a pain in the ass, but most of the time it's fine!
2. So it's like a peaceful stroll, and then the boss forces you back to reality! You'll have to focus once more, learn its patterns, even use tools from your inventory, and die multiple times if needed! 😎
3. And since the Stargazer is always very close to the boss, it's okay to die and retry — you can focus purely on the boss!

Boss-Focused Design & the Cthulhu Vibe

Both games have roughly the same length: it took me 50+ hours to complete Lies of P, and 55+ hours to complete Steelrising. But again, when I played Steelrising I also had the DLC installed. The DLC for Lies of P should be released around the end of March 2025 — time will tell — and I have no doubt it'll add 10+ more hours 👍

Unreal Engine is indeed a great one, and this isn't even version 5!

But Steelrising's tweaked version of Sony's engine isn't bad either... not as good, of course, but it does the job!

It looks beautiful, and far from the "trash" some defenders of Lies of P wanted to make us believe 🤨

⚔ PLAYER BUFF AVAILABLE ⚔

Partner link · Lien partenaire

Lies of P places a heavy emphasis on its bosses. Between them, it's practically always the same amount of time spent exploring the zone. There are no HUGE areas like you'd find in Dark Souls — the Valley of Defilement, or the Stonefang Tunnels. So whenever you're exploring, you know that at some point, the boss must be near 😏

Regarding the bosses of Lies of P, there are several discussions on Reddit where people are frustrated about how much time they spent on them, blaming the boss pattern designs. And it seems everyone had a different opinion about how difficult each boss was... That's because every one of these bosses has different patterns!

And I think it's a good thing! Because it forces us to re-adapt our style, even when we think we're invincible and know all the patterns! No... there will always be a new boss to prove you wrong, with delayed attacks... and even slower delayed attacks! So you thought you could block it, but in the end you press the parry button too soon.

Not that it's a bad thing... it's just a little too predictable, and could have used a change of pace.

Also, most of the interesting chests or loot are guarded by a mini-boss, and I've noticed these mini-bosses can be placed right next to the following Stargazer, or a shortcut back to your previous one.

That means sometimes, at the end of a path, you can go 2 ways... one leads to the shortcut or next Stargazer — great for replenishing your health before continuing 😎 — and the other leads you straight into a mini-boss that you could have tackled after a quick trip back to the Hotel to heal. Tricky bastards! 😜

The more I look at these bosses and mini-bosses, the more I sense a Cthulhu Mythos inspiration!

Hmmm... in fact...

This one definitely comes straight out of a Cthulhu nightmare lol! 😆

I'm a fan of the Cthulhu Mythos, so it's all good with me! Stories where the main characters end up completely mad in an asylum? Yeah, count me in! That's my cup of tea when it comes to scary stories.

Violence, RPG Elements & That Soundtrack

As for the level of violence... well... I wouldn't recommend this game to any child, that's for sure, ahah! Still... I don't think there's any red blood in this game... Actually, I only remember green blood and mechanical oil. So no Mortal Kombat kind of violence here... It's violent, but not an extreme kind of violence.

After all, it's loosely based on Pinocchio... we don't want a gory version of that tale 😉

Speaking of the RPG elements — because what matters in these kinds of games is the progression of your character — you'll have access to the same kind of leveling you'd find in other Souls games... with one exception! You can also find Quartz during your adventure, and these unlock one of 100 available perks!

So while you can spend your experience (ERGO in Lies of P) to boost your attributes, you can also develop your character in a unique way, tailored to your playstyle, thanks to these numerous perks. Now of course, if you're the kind of person who replays the game in NG+ and beyond, you'll max out all these perks in just 2 playthroughs.

Personally, I went for the Great Sword playstyle... since it could stagger even the biggest beasts 😉

All in all, I have to say Round 8 Studio (part of NEOWIZ) did a great job! I should also mention the soundtrack, which is excellent — many singers were hired to perform several of the songs you can play at the Hotel (your base camp). One of these singers is Seo Jayeong, now famous for singing Feel and Quixotic.

It's true that, on this front... Steelrising can't compete at all...

⚔ PLAYER BUFF AVAILABLE ⚔

Partner link · Lien partenaire

A Last Nod to Steelrising and Farewell to Spiders

Sad edit 2026: the French studio Spiders shut down on April 29, 2026, after 18 years, following Nacon's insolvency. One more reason to give Steelrising the respect it deserved. But also one more reason for me to write this article! As a French patriot, I've always been interested in video games made by French studios, and Spiders entertained me over these last years with a few titles like Mars: War Logs and its sequel The Technomancer, but also GreedFall! So it was sad news for me to learn that their publisher Nacon had rushed the liquidation of Spiders.

Is it just me, or does the boss on the right come straight out of the Hellraiser series? 😜

And just for nostalgia, one last picture of Steelrising!

Come on! This French game deserves your interest too 😍

I can understand why the studio chose to protect it with Denuvo when you see the quality of the work... It secured a lot of sales while the protection held 👍 Because one day... one of the developers accidentally (or intentionally, we'll never know...) leaked the game's launcher without the protection, and then the latest 1.5.0.0 version was cracked 😏

+ A challenging Souls-like with its own spirit and design!
+ Marvelous optimization! Runs fast on any decent machine.
+ Punishing, but it forces you to get better! (Git Gud 🤣)
+ Frankly, Round 8 Studio should work with FromSoftware!

- Camera angles can sometimes kill you in close quarters!
- Attribute and perk descriptions aren't that clear...
(many users went to Reddit to ask for clarification)