Here’s A Game About A Gritty Steampunk Pinocchio

Pinocchio is a public domain character. Anyone can do anything with him, not just Disney…so while Disney has a Pinocchio movie coming out later this year, two other studios are releasing their own Pinocchio movies in 2022….and then in 2023, there’s this.

I believe the last time the wooden puppet got his own video game was the Disney movie adaption on the Super NES in 1996. This, however, will be completely different. This is a dark steampunk-inspired violent action RPG where Pinocchio leaps around battling monsters in a decaying city. The game was shown off at Gamescom today.

Though Pinoke has a “real boy” appearance, he IS a doll — he’s just from a future where dolls are indistinguishable from humans. This is the city of Krat, a once-proud institution that fell into chaos once its leader got the bright idea to replace all its workers with robots. The robots rebelled, the people fled, and now it’ll take one angry puppet, on the hunt for his father Gepetto, to set things right.

Gepetto is actually more like Dr. Light in this world, and I’m not referring to the fact that he built his son. Pinoke can use the abilities of his defeated enemies by grafting their robot parts onto his own. But will lies factor into anything? Can Pinocchio say “The Earth is flat” and have his schnoz instantly pierce through a bad guy’s flesh? Not exactly. There is a “lie system” through the choices you make that will affect the game in some way, though developer Round 8 Studio hasn’t shared exactly how.

What would you call such an adventure? Round 8 is calling it “Lies Of P,” a name that has generated endless snickers around the cybersphere. But if I were pressed to come up with a short title that encompassed “Pinocchio, but gritty steampunk” I wouldn’t be able to come up with anything good either.

Lies Of P will be out in 2023 for Playstation 5, XBox Series X and PC.