The world of Lies of P is a dark, brutal, and cruel place to live in. The once prosperous city of Krat has fallen into ruin. There are mass-murdering killing machines called Puppets lurking behind every corner, and people are falling victim to the mysterious Petrification Disease.
A first-time player visiting this decaying world may feel lost and confused as to how to survive the incoming horrors and struggle to beat even the weakest of bosses. Well, don't you worry, we at Windows Central have prepared a beginners’ guide featuring several tips that will help you learn the ropes and get a head start in Lies of P.
1. Take the time to explore every level
Like many Soulslikes, Lies of P features a huge world with a variety of diverse levels seamlessly connected. If this is your first time playing, we recommend not rushing through these levels — take time to explore them. Each level contains a myriad of secrets, ranging from hidden items and weapons to NPCs that will sell you important items or even offer side quests with lucrative rewards.
There are also hidden shortcuts located throughout each locale, which will help make for faster backtracking. These shortcuts are extremely helpful when you have to revisit areas to complete side quests you will discover later in the game. Not to mention, they can make the trip back to a boss arena shorter in the event of you dying and seeking a rematch.
2. Farm Ergo to level up or buy items
Ergo is Lies of P’s main form of currency, which you acquire by killing enemies or using consumables with the keyword ‘Ergo’ attached to them. Ergo is used for all sorts of functions like levelling up your character by talking to Sophia at Hotel Krat (the main safe hub area), buying items from merchants or upgrading gear at the hotel’s workshop.
If you’re fighting a boss, and you feel like you’re taking too much damage or not hurting it enough, take a step back and farm Ergo to level yourself up. Leveling up can improve your stats such as your health and stamina bars, enabling you to survive longer and perform more actions without tiring yourself out too quickly.
You can also invest Ergo into increasing your weight capacity, so you can carry more weapons and accessories without reducing your movement speed due to over-encumbrance. Also, investing Ergo into the Motivity, Technique or Advance stats can increase the amount of damage your weapons can inflict depending on which stat they scale with best. The best part is that every time you level up using Ergo, your natural defense resistance stats increase, so you will take less damage and be able to resist harmful status effects more easily.
Another use for Ergo is to buy items from various merchants you find throughout the game. These include consumables that help restore your Legion Arm or Fable Arts meters in a pinch. Or throwable items which can deal a decent amount of damage while you stay at a safe distance. Even the weakest throwable attack item, the Sawtoothed can chip away a good chunk of the boss’ health bar. Not to mention that some merchants sell powerful weapons or upgrade materials which will make your weapons stronger.
3. Listen to what NPCs have to say
The characters you meet in Lies of P have a lot to say about the world and your mission to rid Krat of psychotic killer robots. While it may be tempting to skip their dialogue, especially if you’re impatient and want to get into the action, we highly advise against doing so.
The NPCs can provide valuable information on your next objective if you get lost and impart lore on how the city of Krat came to be. The most important reason you shouldn’t skip dialogue is that during some conversations, you will be presented with a timed dialogue choice where you must tell a lie or the truth.
Lies of P’s lying mechanic is a core part of the game and depending on how often you lie or answer truthfully. It can change the direction of the story or grant you special in-game rewards. If you skip NPC dialogue, you will miss the context of the truth/lie section or even accidentally choose the wrong answers because you’re rushing through the dialogue.
In addition, all the dialogue decisions you make during a run are permanent because this game auto-saves every second. So, if you don’t want to accidentally miss getting those special rewards or a specific ending to the story, hear out the NPCs’ dialogue and be prepared to lie or answer honestly.
4. Experiment with assembling weapons
One of Lies of P’s core features is the Weapon Assembly system. This will allow you to dismantle weapons you have found or purchased, then use their individual parts to create brand-new weapons.
Weapons are comprised of two parts — the blade and the handle. The blade determines a weapon’s raw or elemental damage, how much damage you mitigate while blocking and the melee attack range. Meanwhile, a weapon’s handle determines what kind of base move-set it will have and what stat scaling it will receive bonus damage from. In addition, both parts of a weapon possess Fable Arts, which are super moves that the player can perform to deal massive damage or protect themselves from incoming harm.
By dismantling weapons and combining different blades and handle parts, you can potentially create dozens of crazy, custom-made weapons which match your preferred play style. If you want to create a weapon that hits fast with a long melee attack range, try combining the handle of a dagger with the blade of a greatsword. How about a weapon that can be used offensively and defensively? Try taking a blade with an offensive Fable Art that can heavily damage enemies, then combining it with a handle possessing a Fable Art, which will enable you to block an attack without taking any damage or stamina loss.
Finally, if there’s a weapon handle you like but the stat-scaling doesn’t match to your current build, use cranks to alter the handle’s stat-scaling, so it becomes more compatible. Experiment with different combinations of weapon parts as you progress through to create the perfect arsenal that will help you conquer every challenge Lies of P throws at you. Do note however that special weapons obtained from trading in Rare Ergo of bosses to the treasure hunter, Alidoro, cannot be dismantled.
5. Collect and upgrade as many Legion Arms as you can
The Legion Arm is a secondary tool which provides extra utility actions in battle when your regular weapons aren’t enough. Lies of P features a wide variety of Legion Arms to collect and upgrade. Some of my favorite examples include the Puppet String, which can pull in human-sized enemies by skewering them with a grappling hook. The Flamberge, which is a flamethrower that can deal continuous fire damage. The Aegis Shield, which blocks attacks and damages attackers with an explosion. And the Falcon Eyes, which is a portable cannon that fires a rocket which sticks to enemies before exploding.
Legion Arms are acquired naturally throughout the game and can be upgraded with more abilities by using Legion Calibers at the Venigni Craft Machine. For example, upgrading the Falcon Eyes Legion Arm will enable you to fire two rockets or a single rocket immediately after performing a dodge roll. The Venigni Craft Machine is unlocked at Hotel Krat after you rescue an important character called Venigni during the main story.
Acquiring Legion Arms, and continuously switching them at checkpoints, will expand your repertoire of offensive attacks and help you turn the tide against both enemies and bosses alike.
6. Carefully consider which P-Organ upgrades to make
After beating the Scrapped Watchman boss, you will unlock the option to grant passive abilities to your character by upgrading your P-Organ. The P-Organ is essentially your heart and by upgrading it with rare items called Quartz, you can obtain all kinds of traits to make you stronger.
To upgrade the P-Organ, you must sit in a chair in Geppetto’s office at Hotel Krat, then select the option to upgrade the P-Organ. From there, you’re taken to a grid with nodes describing all kinds of passive traits you can acquire. These traits include being able to dodge roll in the middle of another dodge roll animation, increasing your Pulse Cell (healing item) capacity, having a longer Fable Art meter, and much more.
To activate these nodes, you must select one, then spend Quartz to activate secondary passive traits in them. These secondary passive traits can take the form of offensive, defensive, survival or quality-of-life improvements. Do note that each node can only have one secondary trait type, i.e. you can’t slap on two offensive traits in a single node, so you have to spread them out.
Once you have enough secondary traits equipped to a node, it will activate and grant you the ability of that node. If you activate enough nodes, you will unlock new higher-level tiers of nodes with more powerful abilities and secondary passive traits.
While it may be tempting to activate the higher tier nodes as soon as they appear, we recommend against that. The first two tiers of nodes will only need two Quartz each to activate, where higher-tier nodes later down the grid will require three or even four Quartz to activate. If you pursue the higher-tier nodes first, it will take you longer to unlock the next tier, as only activating nodes count toward unlocking tiers.
So, we advise you to spend your Quartz on upgrading the lower tier P-Organ nodes first. That way, you will unlock the higher tier nodes faster and gain access to the second passive traits early to give you an advantage over the tougher enemies in the game.
In addition, we recommend you take the time to read the descriptions for the secondary passive traits before committing to spending Quartz. Once you spend Quartz on a node, you can’t refund them until you unlock the ability to re-spec your character later in the game.
7. Practice makes Perfect Guarding Perfect
Your main forms of defense in Lies of P are blocking enemy attacks or dodging out of the way. While these evasive maneuvers are effective, they do have their drawbacks. Blocking or dodging can drain your stamina meter quickly, leaving you unable to perform attacks or evade incoming attacks.
In addition, blocking attacks still damages your health bar but at a reduced rate which can be recovered if you immediately counter-attack. Some enemies have attacks which are unblockable and must be avoided by dodge rolling out of the way. These are Fury Attacks, and they are telegraphed when an enemy is glowing red before striking.
To avoid these problems, there is an additional, albeit difficult, defensive maneuver you can perform called the Perfect Guard. Perfect Guard is when you block an attack a split-second before it hits you. When performed successfully, you will block an attack with zero loss to your health or stamina. Perfect Guard can even stop unblockable Fury Attacks that regular blocking can’t.
If you manage to Perfect Guard multiple attacks in a row, you will cause an enemy to enter a state where they can be staggered and left vulnerable to a finishing move called the Fatal Blow. On top of that, performing multiple Perfect Guards on certain enemies and bosses will cause their weapon to break in half, leaving them weaker and decreasing their melee range.
Granted, the timing of Perfect Guard is very strict, and some enemies will have some very weird looking attacks with differing attack speeds that are hard to react to. However, if you practice and manage to get the timing of Perfect Guard down, you will be able to parry almost every attack and leave enemies speechless as you break their cherished weapon to pieces.
8. Summon the Specter when struggling at boss fights
At the entrance of a boss arena, there’s a small water font sitting next to it. If you offer it an item called a Star Fragment, you will be able to summon an otherworldly warrior called the Specter to aid you during an upcoming boss fight. This NPC is a capable fighter who dishes out hefty amounts of damage and can distract a boss’ attention away from you while you attack its blind spot.
The Specter can be a helpful ally if you’re stuck on a particular boss or if you are fighting multiple bosses and fancy evening the odds. The best part is that unlike other Soulslikes where summoning NPC or player allies increases a boss’ health, making the fight potentially harder. Summoning the Specter does not increase a boss’ health at all in Lies of P, so you don’t have to worry about making the fight unintentionally harder on yourself.
Are you ready to cut the Puppets’ strings?
And there you have our top beginners’ tips to help newcomers get a head start in Lies of P. With this advice, you will now be better prepared with the knowledge of how to overcome horrifying, mechanical monsters and solve the mysteries that await you in one of the best Xbox games and best PC games of 2023. If you want to learn more about this game before you jump in, be sure to check out my comprehensive Lies of P review.
Lies of P is now available for purchase on Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC via Microsoft Store & Steam after releasing on September 19, 2023.
