If Lies of P’s demanding difficulty was putting you off from diving into the Pinocchio-themed soulslike, then fear not, because changes are on the way to make the start of your journey a tad easier.
This was revealed by Lies of P director Ji Won Choi in the new ‘Director’s Letter’ video that was posted to YouTube today (November 1). As well as discussing plans for a sequel and DLC, he spoke about an upcoming patch (which will make tweaks to certain weapons), as well as the fact that the developers will be making an adjustment to Pinocchio’s default skills to address the game’s “high difficulty right from the start”, noting that this “might have posed challenges for some players”.
“We’ve received feedback that the character’s default stats seem insufficient, and that the game demands a considerable degree of control and skill. Yes, we sure have heard about the shovel puppet at Venigni Works,” he said, referring to the notoriously tricky enemy that players meet in the game’s third area.
“To ease the difficulty level in the early stages of the game, we plan to provide our protagonist the Rising Dodge ability as a default skill, eliminating the need to unlock it from the P-Organ,” he continued. “Also, Polendina will sell two additional Quartz from the first stage of his shop. I hope these adjustments help you feel the sense of improvement in combat at an earlier stage of the game.”
For those unfamiliar, Rising Dodge allows the player to pull off a dodge when they’ve been knocked off their feet and onto the ground, which is bound to be useful when fighting tough enemies. Otherwise, Quartz is an upgrade material that can be used to upgrade the P-Organ to unlock even more abilities. Getting access to more of this earlier will give players further options to fine-tune their approach to the game.
Based on what the director said, it’s not entirely clear if these changes will be included as part of the game’s upcoming patch, so we’ll just have to stay tuned for now. The idea of making things easier may be controversial to some fans of the brutal soulslike genre, but many may well be relieved that the start of the game will soon be slightly more forgiving.
If you’re looking for even more great solo experiences, be sure to check out our recommendations of the best single-player games. You can find even more brilliant games on our list of the best PC games.
