When the soulslike game Lies of P was released to the masses on September 19th, 2023, it was met with critical acclaim and financial success. For many, this was great news. A well made game without any microtransactions or live-service nonsense for gamers to enjoy. But for us dedicated journalists at Hard Drive, we had received a mystery to solve: What does the P stand for? What does the title even mean? Lies of P? Who or what is “P”? And what does this “P” have to lie about?
The first step of solving the mystery was to, of course, play the game. Now, we here at Hard Drive take great pride in our gaming abilities. Why would we write about video games if we couldn’t play them? However, after 3 long hours of throwing our generic brand Timothée Chalamet protagonist at this giant carnival robot boss, it became clear to us that the game was specifically designed to be unfair and impossible to beat.
It would have been of no use for us to look up gaming guides or walkthroughs. After all, the Hard Drive team couldn’t get through it, who could? Clearly everyone else had gotten stuck on the exact same point as us and was clearly pretending to love the game out of embarrassment. That was when we realized we had to go even further to uncover the truth.
Sure, we could have called or emailed the developers responsible for Lies of P and asked them what the “P” stood for, but that would have made them suspicious. Any game company willing to put such a brutal, unforgiving boss fight right at the beginning of their game in order to keep even the most skilled gamers alive (us) from progressing clearly has something to hide. If we were to discover the truth, we were going to have to take drastic measures – investigative journalism. And so, after waiting until the stroke of midnight and wearing our investigative journalist uniforms (ski masks and gloves), we set out to do our duty.
Believe it or not, there was actually not much in the way of security at the Lies of P developer’s office. No spike traps, electrified fences, sniper nests, sleeping guard dogs on chain leashes, or (thankfully) giant murderous carnival robots. While on the outside it may have looked like any regular office, we could tell with our journalist instincts that this was simply a front. Inside this rather plain looking building hides the true secret behind the “P.” If we wanted answers, we would have to get inside.
We were pretty confident in our abilities to use a credit card to pick the door lock after watching some YouTube tutorials. Unfortunately, it seems that those videos, much like the game we were trying to expose, were based on lies. One snapped credit card later and we realized we would have to take a more drastic measure. A measure that involved a brick, a window, and the throwing of said brick through said window.
The inside of the building was just as unremarkable looking as the outside. It appeared to be a very typical game developer’s office, filled with cubicles, computers, and potted plants. We worked our way through the office looking for any clues we could find, but we found nothing notable as we rummaged through each and every cubicle. Pens and papers. Knick knacks. Stress balls. Pictures of smiling families, blissfully unaware that their loved one works for a clandestine operation (we would change that soon, of course). On one desk we found a pink stapler and played around with that as the solution, but the theory was slowly discarded. Lies of Pink Stapler? Wouldn’t that make it Lies of PS? It was a ridiculous notion.
On several of the desks, oddly enough, we found copies of The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. We assumed that meant the employees were doing some sort of book club, but leafed through the pages in order to be thorough. Some of the books were highlighted throughout, clearly by the overachievers of the book club. Looking inside what looked to be a conference room, we found the whiteboard filled with the word “PINOCCHIO” written in capital letters in the center, surrounded by other character names, locations from the book, excerpts and questions. It all began to make sense. This conference room was clearly where the book club was held.
Frustrated, we pieced together what we could. This office seemed more interested in the story of Pinnochio than the story of their own game. So much so that the story in the game seemed to outright plagiarize the story in the book. We cleverly noticed that the man in the story, Geppetto, had the same name as the man mentioned at the beginning of the game, and that both stories heavily featured puppets that came to life. While admittedly the story of Lies of P was way more violent and cool than this rather boring book, we wondered what Carlo Collodi would have to say about this act of piracy.
We would have dug further, but by then the police must have been notified. When we saw the red and blue lights coming down the street and heard the sirens, we cleared out quickly, before any of us thought to take any photos.
And so our investigation was cut short before we could discover the truth behind the absurd title. What could the “P” possibly stand for? And what does the game have to do with The Adventures of Pinocchio? If you ask us, we would say the “P” stands for “Plagiarism.”
We have since attempted to find Carlo Collodi to report that his story has been stolen, but have had no luck so far. Clearly this author is a J.D. Salinger-esque recluse. Until then, we must bide our time and plan for the next opportunity to blow the cover off this whole scheme, finally revealing to the world what Lies of P really means.
As soon as the charges are dropped, of course.
