"Hey monster with half a face and a single pulsating demonic eye, that shirt you're wearing looks really cool," yelled Pinocchio. And with that very clear lie, his nose grew and sharpened. And before the monster could look down at his attire and then back up to give Pinocchio a puzzled look, he felt the sting of Nostrellius - the Blade of Toys. With guts, bile, and blood strewn about the gritty and gothic backdrop of a darkened Cathedral, Pinocchio took a moment to bask in the destruction of another fell beast.

Right, Pinocchio fan fiction aside, Life of P is as per the headline. A new Souls-like action-RPG inspired by the story of Pinocchio. It's currently in development for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and is being built from the ground-up as a gritty take on a character we associate with Disney.

The description is the sort of stuff you'd expect to be a parody, but it's dead-set serious.

As Pinocchio himself, you must navigate through a dark Belle Epoque world where all of humanity is lost. The once beautiful city of Krat has become a living hell, and you must find the famed Mr. Geppetto to unravel the mystery of what happened to both yourself and the world around you.

As the puppet mechanoid Pinocchio, you will wind your way through the streets of a ruined city, crafting weapons from the materials you find in the world, and interacting with the remaining few who manage to survive in this pre-industrial hellscape. The more you lie, the more human you become, with all the advantages and disadvantages that it entails. A richly detailed crafting system, profound narrative choices, and deeply customizable character progression round out the RPG features in Lies of P.

Here's the cinematic announcement trailer.



Apart from earning a big "What?" when we first read the description, the tone and look is fairly impressive. And a dark and grim fairy-tale setting is ripe for the action-RPG treatment.