Lies of P is set to receive further updates, including “difficulty reduction”, following the release of its Overture DLC.
In a video from director Jiwon Choi, he stated the development team is grateful for feedback and suggestions from players since the DLC was shadow-dropped last week at Summer Game Fest.
“We’re reviewing all of it carefully and are already looking into when to implement some of your suggestions,” he said. “Among all the feedback, we are paying the closest attention to the combat experience.
“We identified areas that did not turn out quite as we intended,” he continued. “Therefore, we are reviewing various adjustments, including difficulty reduction.
“However, combat is one of the most fundamental experiences in Lies of P, so any modifications or changes require meticulous work and thorough testing.”
The details and date for the next patch are unknown, but the director is clearly keen to keep the game’s community up to date with the development process. It follows a patch alongside the DLC that’s added plenty of quality of life changes to the base game.
Since the DLC’s release, players have criticised Overture for its high difficulty. In particular, on NG+ even regular enemies are proving challenging.
What has perhaps exacerbated this is that the DLC is only accessible once you reach chapter nine of the main game. It means that, if like me, you started a NG+ run after finishing the game, you’ll need to play through it again to reach the DLC. I suspect a lot of players are therefore attempting Overture for the first time on NG+ rather than starting the base game again, raising the difficulty level beyond what was intended for a first run.
While Overture is a paid expansion for Lies of P, the base game has received a free update adding new difficulty levels. The original difficulty is now normal, while two easier difficulty levels have been added.
This addition is somewhat controversial for soulslike games, which are known for their high challenge, but it’s also ensuring the game is more approachable for a wider audience. And, for me at least, it’s making racing through the base game to get to the DLC a lot quicker on easy mode!
Still, it’s clear that balancing the difficulty is proving a challenge for the developer with this additional expansion. But that’s something even FromSoftware struggled with when Elden Ring expansion Shadow of the Erdtree was released – it was criticised by some for being too difficult and was subsequently adjusted.