Lies of P is a retelling of the classic Pinocchio adventure in the form of a Soulsborne game. Players control P and must make his way through the dystopian city of Kratt. Along the way, he meets familiar named characters from the original and learns what it takes to become a “real boy”.

Like the FromSoft game on which Lies of P is based, the story is very deep, some of which is told through side dialogue, item descriptions, and other hidden lore. In fact, some big clues are hidden in NG+, as players have access to a puppet language translation tool. Once you beat the game, Kratt’s dark tale begins to make sense.

Krat, Puppets, And Ergo

KRATT was just a small port town until a group calling themselves “The Alchemists” discovered Ergo beneath the town. Ergo is a mysterious blue substance that acts as a powerful fuel, and the Alchemists used it to transform KRATT into a bustling city full of amazing inventions. A man named Geppetto further aided KRATT’s technological advancement by developing automatons called “Dolls”. These dolls were powered by Ergo and took on menial tasks around the city such as construction, police work, cooking, cleaning, and even entertainment. Virtually every house had its own personal doll butler or doll girl. But in Kratt’s doll industry, a small problem occurred when one of the dolls murdered a human. After that, Geppetto implemented a covenant into each doll. The Covenant had four rules that all dolls had to follow. They were:

• Obey the orders of your creator.
• Do not harm people.
• Protect and serve Kratt and his people.
• Never lie.

With the establishment of the Covenant, Kratt flourished and became a thriving metropolis that players can explore in-game.

Simon Manus, Carlo, and Gepetto’s True Goal

With Simon Manas taking control of the alchemists, the first cases of the stone disease appear. Geppetto loses his son Carlo and his best friend Romeo to the disease. Simon obtains a relic called the “Arm of God” that leads to his apotheosis. However, to activate this relic, Simon needs a large amount of Ergo to power the arm. At this time, Geppetto also learns that he can awaken the ego of a doll and give it a semblance of life. Still grief-stricken, Geppetto hatches a plan to revive Carlo using the “Arms of God” and the P-Device, a modified version of Carlo’s heart. To achieve this goal, Geppetto transforms Carlo’s original body into an unnamed doll, creating a new doll, P, that is not bound to the Grand Covenant, which acts as a host for the P-Device and a temporary container for Carlo’s memories and ego. P’s goal is to collect Ergo at all costs to charge the P-Device and aid in Carlo’s resurrection. Independence from the Grand Covenant is intended to ensure that P can collect Ergo through any action P deems appropriate.

Petrification Disease

Petrosis occurs when a person is exposed to concentrated Ergo for an extended period of time. Ergo spores begin to take root in a person’s skin, forming crystals, causing the flesh to turn cold, the blood to turn blue, and eventually the person to die. In some cases, the victim may even go insane and mutate into a monster. Once symptoms appear, it is nearly impossible to cure.

Puppet Frenzy

Seemingly randomly, nearly every doll in the city went insane and began killing innocent civilians. This became known as Doll Madness. As the dolls continue their horrific massacres throughout the streets of Kratt, the citizens flee and barricade themselves wherever they can. Later, through communication with the Puppet King, it is revealed that this was only possible due to a secret law 0 hidden in the Great Covenant. This law reveals that the creator of law 1 is Geppetto, meaning that all of the dolls’ madness was started by Geppetto himself. Furthermore, when massacring the citizens, the dolls themselves said “Protect the people!”

The reason this does not violate the Great Covenant is because Geppetto made it so that anyone infected with the petrification disease would no longer be considered human. As a result, the dolls attack the infected humans to carry out Geppetto’s plan to stay within the boundaries of the Great Covenant while reviving Carlo.

In these turbulent times, P. awakens.

P’s Journey

A blue butterfly named Sophia awakens Geppetto’s chrysalis and tells him to go to Hotel Kratt to explain what happened. After bringing along Gemini as an escort, Geppetto’s doll makes his way through the streets fighting off racing automatons who roam the streets in search of more victims. He soon reaches the hotel, where he meets Sophia and other helpers who aid him on his journey.

Soon, he is dispatched to rescue Geppetto and succeeds in saving his creator’s life from a madman known as “Mad Donkey”. After safely escorting Geppetto back to the hotel, P is immediately ordered to rescue Lorenzini Venini, the man who helped Geppetto mass-produce dolls for the rest of Kratt. P arrives in time to save Lorenzini and kill the giant robot doll Fuoco, who tries to invade the Cathedral of St. Frangelico on the orders of the Doll King.

Saint Frangelico’s Cathedral And The Balum District

During the Doll Mania, refugees took refuge in the Cathedral. P looks inside and sees people going mad from stone disease killing each other. Exploring the Cathedral further, P discovers a mutated monster who was Archbishop Andreas. Archbishop Andreas became a monster due to his connections with alchemists and human experiments, and P.

P is then sent to investigate the Balm District, where he encounters the Black Rabbit Brotherhood, a group of stalkers hired by the alchemist to provide gold coin fruits for his experiments. During this battle, P kills his eldest brother.

The King Of Puppets

Geppetto says that the Puppet King may be behind the madness, and if so, he must be stopped. P kills the White Lady on his way to the Opera House, and ends up confronting the Puppet King.

The Puppet King reaches out his hand peacefully, but P smacks it away. A fight soon breaks out between the two, with the Puppet King trying to communicate in an unknown language. After the Puppet King is killed, a new puppet is created from his body. This puppet is none other than Romeo, whose body has been transformed into a puppet by Geppetto. Unfortunately, Romeo is still unable to communicate with his best friend Carlo (aka P) and decides to murder P instead. P gains the upper hand and Romeo accepts his death in the hope that it will give him the freedom he desires.

Geppetto is waiting for P. in front of the Opera House and tells him to explore the Great Exhibition Hall to find out what’s going on with the alchemists and whether there’s any truth to the rumors about a cure for the stone disease.

Exhibition Hall, Victor, And Ergo’s True Nature

P goes to the exhibition hall and meets Victor, a powerful wrestling champion who died of an incurable disease. However, the alchemist’s experiments with Ergo and the petrification disease bring Victor back to life, stronger than ever and closer to immortality than anyone else in Kratts (except for Raksasia).

P sends Victor back to the afterlife and is congratulated by Simon Manas for completing this mission. Simon, like any good supervillain, monologues with P about the true nature of Ergo and how it works. He then invites P to visit him on the alchemist’s island.

True Nature Of Ergo Thanks To Simon Manus

It turns out that Ergo is made of condensed and crystallized human souls. Each Ergo crystal still contains the memories of the person who created it. Because of this, the doll’s ego can awaken. h. The identity of the person inside the Ergo used to power the doll becomes recognized. It is also later revealed that Ergo is made from victims of the Petrification Disease, as the crystals that form inside Ergo’s body contain a purified “essence”. This drives them insane and turns them into corpses. Some victims must endure the consciousness of other souls that live inside the crystals growing inside their bodies.

According to Victor’s demonic monologue, the alchemists have discovered that overcoming the Petrification Disease gives the surviving humans “enhanced bodies and minds that do not lie”. With this idea, the alchemists want to take humanity to the next stage of evolution, and Victor has provided a proof of concept for this idea.

Barren Swamp And The Attack On The Hotel

To reach Alchemist’s Island, P must obtain a shard of the Great Ergo, which can only be found in the Barren Swamp, a dumping ground for doll corpses. P defeats the swamp monster that lives there and obtains the shard. Sophia soon contacts him, warning him that the hotel is under attack. P rushes back to the hotel and finds out that the Black Rabbit Brotherhood has kidnapped Geppetto on Simon’s orders.

As Sophia speaks to P and tells him why she woke him up in the first place, P prepares to jump into the Venini submarine. She wanted someone to save Kratt, but at the same time she wanted someone to end her misery. Sophia’s main body is on Alchemist’s Island, and the one P came into contact with is an astral projection. Sophia is a listener, someone who can hear and control Ergo. This gives Sophia a small amount of power beyond time and space through the strange properties of Ergo, and this allows her to continue living no matter how many times P dies. However, Simon had bound Sophia to a machine and was using its power to transmit the petrification disease to humans. Constant contact with Ergo caused her body to mutate and put her in a constant state of pain.

P boards the submarine using a secret passage to the hotel documents, but is ambushed by the Black Rabbit Brotherhood. However, this time they also brought along their newly resurrected eldest brother. P takes everyone and jumps into the submarine to head to the island. This battle is important to watch as this is the second time we witness an alchemist successfully resurrect the dead.

Isle Of Alchemists

Upon arriving on the island, P is contacted by Sophia, who speaks of her ability to control time through Ergo. As P approaches the tower, he finds himself confronted by Laxasia the Perfect, the closest thing to perfection of all of Simon’s creations.

After Laxasia is defeated, Geppetto’s doll climbs the tower to find Sophia. Here, the player can decide to grant Sophia peace or save her. If the player chooses to give Sophia peace, they will end up experiencing the true ending. Note that this choice caused Geppetto’s doll to absorb Sophia’s Ergo, causing her to grow long white hair and turn her into a human.

However, if the player chooses to save Sophia, they are well on their way towards the “normal” ending. With this choice, no special effects occur and P appears the same.

Simon’s Apotheosis

At the top of the tower, a severely mutated Simon awaits P. Thanks to all the Ergo P siphoned off from the battle at Kratt, the God Arm is ready for use and Simon appears to fuse it to his body. A battle ensues and Simon mutates into “Awakened God” to defeat P.

Despite Simon’s newfound divinity, P defeats Simon. In his final words, Simon asks what happened to Sophia, then warns P about Geppetto.

Gepetto’s Final Move

With his God Arm, a ton of Ergos, and a fully charged P Device all in one place, Geppetto is overjoyed. His long-term plan is finally coming to fruition. All he has to do is retrieve P’s heart and transplant it into Carlo’s body to revive his son. From then on, the player will have the choice of whether or not to hand over P’s heart. If he refuses, Geppetto will be enraged and will forcefully take Carlo’s dismembered body to retrieve his heart. Once you have defeated the Nameless Doll or decided to hand over P’s heart, the game will reach one of three endings.