People knew Lies of P would be a difficult game going into it, but even veteran Dark Souls players claim to have hit a difficulty wall. Some players have given up on the game altogether despite having beaten other FromSoftware games.
Bloodborne left many players wanting. With any drop of news about a sequel sparking massive speculation in a wanting fanbase, Lies of P looked to be the game that’d scratch that Souls-like itch for FromSoftware fans.
However, those who have conquered the hardest challenges the Souls games and other FromSoft titles have to offer have hit a wall with Lies of P.
With many claiming that bosses take over a dozen hours to conquer and some quitting the game altogether, many feel as if Lies of P is even more difficult than the games that inspired it.
Souls veterans hit difficulty wall with Lies of P
The original Dark Souls’ release redefined the gaming landscape, for better or for worse. It became a bar to which many other games were compared to. If difficulty’s in the conversation when it comes to a game, Dark Souls is likely to become part of that conversation very quickly.
However, even through the lens of games’ difficulty being compared to Dark Souls being a bit of a tedious concept, Lies of P coming so close to its inspiration makes it impossible to avoid the comparison.
And, for many Souls players, Lies of P is much, much harder than the Souls games.
The conversation kicked off right after release, with one player’s controverisal post speaking about how they’ve beaten every Souls game several times and yet couldn’t make any progress.
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Other players have claimed that they’ve gotten stuck on certain bosses for over a dozen hours at a time.
With enemies regenerating health if you go too long without hitting them and a lack of ranged options, players don’t have any choice but to engage with every system the game has on offer rather than finding their own way to win. Anyone who beat a game like Elden Ring through magic would be woefully unprepared for Lies of P.
This has led to a lot of Souls players bashing Lies of P, claiming that it needs drastic overhauls to core game systems like parrying, dodging, and other core parts of combat to bring it more in line with FromSoftware titles.
However, Souls expert Iron Pineapple argued that, while players’ frustrations are understandable, that people have to drop pre-conceived notions about what the game “should” be in favor of embracing Lies of P for what it is.
“This game was clearly meticulously designed, and choices like attacks not being cancellable or the parry window being relatively small are not mistakes or accidents. They’re just different from what a lot of people are used to.”
He continued, “The overall response reminds me heavily of when Sekiro first came out, and also when the Nioh games came out, and how people bounce off of them because they treated them like Souls games. Some people are playing it like it’s Bloodborne, some people are playing it like it’s Sekiro. Both groups are wrong. You need to play it like it’s Lies of P and meet the game where it’s at.”
