Lies of P drew some deserved comparisons to Bloodborne when it was first revealed and later released, generally to the delight of game director Jiwon Choi, but the distinct mood and atmosphere of the game – a piano and string-heavy soundtrack accentuating robot puppet smackdowns – helped it make a name for itself. As Lies of P’s massive Overture expansion approaches, with a sequel already in the works, Choi says he remains a big fan of FromSoftware‘s works and respects the Soulslike label that so many fans use, but he’s got his eyes set on crafting something meaningfully different.
I brought up the old Bloodborne comparison at an interview at GDC 2025, and asked how Overture’s mood compares to the base game. “The easier path for us is to explain to you what sort of mood we wanted to evoke among the fans,” Choi responded (via interpreter). “However, I’m going to control myself and tell you that we will leave that to the fans to experience.”
“I am a big fan of Bloodborne, and we believe that it’s actually a very attractive game,” he added. “I’m a fan of FromSoftware as well. But I wouldn’t say I’m particularly inspired by a specific game. I’m a fan of many, many types of games, and that variety of different experiences and inspirations that I pick up with many different games I love, I sort of mold it into my own Lies of P experience. In the end, it’s a combination of diverse inspirations that I get from many games that I love, and then I’m trying to transform that into a Lies of P experience that I’m developing for the fans of Lies of P now.”
There can be a tendency in games, partly because of how games are experienced and recommended, to associate things one-to-one and treat surface-level similarities as direct emulations. The esoteric ball of mechanics that defines a Soulslike, a genre term I’ve simply come to accept, is just one example. Good, recognizable, popular games can be useful reference points for players as well as devs in different ways – what worked here and why – but art builds on art and inspiration comes from everywhere, so you can’t really pin ideas to one or even a few games or works. I discussed this iceberg of ideas with Choi, who said he never thinks of making games as following a pattern.
