BODY: For years, "Soulslike" has been a word that sends newcomers running. Punishing bosses, cryptic maps, and the ever-present threat of losing your hard-won progress make the genre feel like a members-only club. But according to a recent AUTOMATON column, Lies of P: Complete Edition—newly released for Nintendo Switch 2—might be the game that finally opens the door.
The writer, a genuine Soulslike beginner, describes the experience as a "coming-of-age journey" shared with the marionette protagonist, P. Set in the decaying, Belle Époque city of Krat and loosely inspired by The Adventures of Pinocchio, the game casts you as a puppet fighting through streets overrun by murderous automatons. The gothic atmosphere and the theme of a "lie" that makes you more human give the punishing combat an emotional throughline.
What makes it approachable, the column argues, is how the game teaches rather than punishes. The Complete Edition bundles the base game with the Overture DLC and various balance refinements, and its systems—weapon assembly, the Legion Arm prosthetics, and generous checkpointing—reward experimentation over rote memorization. Death still stings, but every attempt visibly sharpens the player's skill, turning frustration into that signature Soulslike sense of triumph.
For the writer, the payoff was discovering that a genre they'd dismissed out of hand was, in fact, thrilling. The Switch 2's portability only sweetens the deal, letting players chip away at Krat's nightmares in bite-sized sessions.
The insider take
Korean studio Round8's Lies of P has been a quiet point of pride in Japan's game circles, where it's often cited as proof that the Soulslike torch has spread well beyond FromSoftware's Tokyo studios. Japanese players embraced its Pinocchio conceit warmly—the source material is a childhood staple here—and Switch 2 ownership skews toward exactly the lapsed or casual audience that once found Dark Souls impenetrable. A sequel is already confirmed, so this edition doubles as an accessible on-ramp before the next chapter.
Originally reported by AUTOMATON (Japanese).