Use your DualSense to make those strings dance, or risk Chala-may P getting turned into woodchips.
49 LIES OF P
FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 19 SEP / PUB NEOWIZ / DEV NEOWIZ / PLAYERS 1
We wouldn’t be fibbing if we said there’s lots to love W about this adaptation of the Pinocchio fable, but we’d be having a nose growth spurt if we said the mechanics feel original. Yet saying that, our PS5 hands-on makes us think a current-gen Bloodborne would be no bad thing – we love FromSoftware’s gothic nightmare.
P might have only just awoken in an abandoned train station in the middle of Krat, a city overrun by out-of-control automata. But he steps out of his carriage home without missing a beat, ready to spill oily blood onto the streets (and get his frilly shirt drenched in the process). Indeed, if Bloodborne’s ingrained in your muscle memory, you’re ready to go, with light and heavy attacks to combo, a portion of the health bar to regain if you attack enemies who have damaged you, and levelling up done at enemy respawning checkpoints.
It doesn’t look like being a friendly alternative either, with some of its own twists on the genre actually making things harsher. Die, and you can recover your dropped XP-currency (called Ergo, here), but the amount to be restored diminishes as you take damage from other enemies on the way – though die to a boss and it’ll handily be deposited before their arena. P’s weapons, too, have durability, meaning you’ll need to back off mid-fight to use your in-arm gears to sharpen them back up. On top of that, enemy attacks are, currently, perhaps a smidge too magnetised to our Chalametlookalike-hero. Further customisation of his puppet innards could end up setting Lies Of P apart, but for now we wonder whether this will be doomed to be a puppet-like Bloodborne imitation, or an industrial revolution worth fighting through on its own merits.
48 BANISHERS: GHOSTS OF NEW EDEN
FORMAT PS5 / ETA 2023 / PUB FOCUS ENTERTAINMENT DEV DON’T NOD / PLAYERS 1
Hunting spirits in this action RPG, Red and Antea work together to bring closure to the living. Flesh-and-blood Red mac Raith boasts an arsenal that’ll send all mortal threats into the afterlife, while his lost love Antea Duarte works from the other side of the veil.
For the duo, it wasn’t always like this, and Antea is far from happy about her change in circumstance. A new IP from Life Is Strange’s original developer, you can expect an earnest exploration of this longdistance relationship. As the pair search for a way out of this so-close-yet-so-far predicament, you’ll encounter many other unfortunate souls, and how you deal with them alters your own tale.
47 STAMPEDE: RACING
