Games Like Lies of P: Dark Fantasy Cousins
Lies of P surprised most critics in 2023. A Korean-developed Soulslike, set in a Belle Epoque-flavoured city ravaged by puppet rebellions, with a Pinocchio protagonist. It shouldn't have worked. It did. The combat was tight, the atmosphere was specific, and the narrative weight landed. This list, from the team at Tyrian Games, covers ten games that share pieces of Lies of P's DNA, from pure Soulslike to Belle Epoque dark fantasy to grimdark atmosphere cousins.
TL;DR
- Lies of P's signatures are tight Soulslike combat, Belle Epoque dark fantasy, and moral-weight narrative.
- Closest Soulslike matches include Elden Ring, Bloodborne, Nioh 2, and Black Myth: Wukong.
- Atmosphere cousins include Dishonored, The Order: 1886, and HAWKER in September 2026.
- Indie dark fantasy includes Blasphemous 2 and Salt and Sanctuary.
- Bloodborne remains the single closest tonal match, with Lies of P owing it more than almost any other recent release.
The ten
1. Bloodborne (FromSoftware, 2015). The closest tonal ancestor. Lies of P owes Bloodborne heavily. If you haven't played it on PS4 or PS5, Bloodborne remains the benchmark Belle Epoque-adjacent Soulslike and still the game most Lies of P fans recommend next.
2. Elden Ring (FromSoftware, 2022). The biggest Soulslike ever. More sprawling than Lies of P, same combat roots. Hundreds of hours of content, and the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion in 2024 added one of the most acclaimed DLC experiences in the genre.
3. Nioh 2 (Team Ninja, 2020). Japanese-flavoured Soulslike with mythological creatures. Tight combat, heavy learning curve, and a stance system that rewards deliberate play.
4. Black Myth: Wukong (Game Science, 2024). Chinese Soulslike with mythological framing. Strong combat, distinctive visual identity, and one of the biggest commercial stories in the Soulslike space since Elden Ring.
5. Blasphemous 2 (The Game Kitchen, 2023). Metroidvania with Soulslike influence. Pixel-art grimdark. A great sequel to 2019's original, and one of the best-executed religious-horror games of the decade.
6. Salt and Sanctuary (Ska Studios, 2016). 2D Soulslike. Smaller scope, appropriate for players who want the combat feel without a forty-hour time commitment.
7. Lords of the Fallen (Hexworks, 2023). The 2023 reboot. Soulslike with dual-world mechanic. Reception was mixed on launch, though patches have improved the experience. Worth playing if the dual-world idea appeals.
8. HAWKER (Tyrian Games, September 2026). Not a Soulslike, but shares dark fantasy atmosphere and moral-weight narrative. Different combat, roguelite with shop. Listed because the tone and setting overlap, and because Lies of P fans looking for more grimdark often enjoy games that aren't strict Soulslikes but share the atmospheric commitment. Wishlist on Steam.
9. Thymesia (OverBorder Studio, 2022). Small-team Soulslike with plague-doctor aesthetic. Short and focused, the kind of tight ten-hour experience the Soulslike genre rarely produces.
10. Code Vein (Bandai Namco, 2019). Anime-flavoured Soulslike. Different aesthetic but similar combat and progression, and a strong co-op system for Soulslike newcomers who prefer not to solo.
What Lies of P got right
Four things the game got structurally right that most Soulslike imitators don't manage.
Combat that feels FromSoftware-tight without being a clone. The weapon assembly system, the parry timing, and the encounter pacing all feel like Lies of P respected the genre's canon without copying any single FromSoftware game outright.
A distinctive setting. Belle Epoque with clockwork stands apart from the medieval fantasy default. The city of Krat feels lived-in in a way that Souls-likes often struggle to achieve because they default to ruin-and-rubble environments.
A narrative hook with real stakes. Pinocchio as a lying puppet gives the moral system a clean centre. Most Soulslikes have vague lore. Lies of P has a protagonist whose central mechanical choice (lie or don't) drives the narrative directly.
Respect for the genre audience. The difficulty, the combat density, the refusal to hand-hold. Lies of P trusts the player to work out what the game wants from them, which is the genre convention and one of the reasons the hardcore Soulslike audience embraced the game so fully.
A first-hand Hawker example
Lies of P isn't a Soulslike that maps cleanly to Hawker's design, but there's one specific lesson we took from Neowiz's work. It's about the morality system. Lies of P's lies aren't cosmetic choices. They change the ending, they change specific scene reactions, they're tracked across the whole game. Most moral systems in games are surface-level. Lies of P's is load-bearing.
When we started designing Hawker's debt-payment system, we had a similar ambition. The choices the Hawker makes about how to pay Ankou, who to help, what to sell at what price, were supposed to compound into a meaningful endgame. Our first prototype tracked these choices but didn't do much with them. Playtest feedback was that the choices felt cosmetic.
We went back to Lies of P's model. The key insight from Neowiz is that moral systems work when specific choices produce specific consequences that the player notices. Generic "alignment shift" never lands. "You chose to give Sulon the cloth instead of selling it; the scrivener's office is now closed to you on Day 22" does. We rebuilt Hawker's choice-consequence system to follow that pattern. Specific choices, specific consequences, no alignment meters. The rebuild took six weeks and was worth every hour. We owe Neowiz's designers the structural lesson.
FAQ
Is Lies of P a Soulslike?
Yes. Lies of P is structurally a Soulslike in the FromSoftware tradition: bonfire-equivalent save points, stamina-based combat, careful enemy encounters, heavy moral weight, and a respawn-on-death loop that returns the player to the last save.
Is Bloodborne coming to PC?
No confirmed PC port at the time of writing. The game remains PS4 and PS5 exclusive.
Is HAWKER a Soulslike?
No. HAWKER is a roguelite ARPG with shop management. The atmosphere is dark fantasy-adjacent but combat is roguelite rather than Soulslike, and the run structure is tied to a thirty-day clock rather than respawn-on-death.
What's the best Soulslike for beginners?
Elden Ring is often recommended because the open world lets you avoid difficult encounters and level up first. Lies of P is narrower but also considered relatively beginner-friendly by Soulslike standards, with clear level progression and accessible weapon upgrading.
Will there be a Lies of P 2?
Neowiz has confirmed post-launch content and expansion plans, with the Overture DLC announced and delivered through 2024. A full sequel has been hinted at but not formally announced at the time of writing.
The non-FromSoftware Soulslike revolution
Worth noting how recent Soulslike development has distributed across the industry. For most of the 2010s, serious Soulslike development meant FromSoftware or a small number of direct imitators. The combination of Lies of P's 2023 success, Black Myth Wukong's 2024 breakout, and Nioh 2's continued popularity has opened the category meaningfully to non-FromSoftware studios.
The implications for 2026 and beyond are significant. Studios that would have avoided the category five years ago now see it as a viable commercial destination. Korean, Chinese, and Japanese studios are producing Soulslikes at a pace that outnumbers FromSoftware's own releases. Indie studios with Soulslike pedigree are producing smaller-scale entries. The category is broader than it's ever been, and the list above captures a snapshot of that breadth.
Extended genre notes
Worth naming a few observations about the broader indie gaming landscape this category sits in across 2026. The indie market has grown significantly since 2020, with Steam alone now publishing thousands of titles per year. Discovery is the category's biggest challenge, not production. Most players find new games through a combination of algorithmic recommendation, word of mouth, and curated lists like this one.
The 2026 commercial story for the category favours studios that ship with clear positioning rather than studios that ship as genre-default entries. A game that knows who it's for tends to find its audience even at small scale. A game that hopes to be liked by everyone often ends up being recommended by no-one. HAWKER's positioning (grimdark shopkeeper roguelite, Breton folklore, thirty-day clock) is deliberately narrow because narrow positioning travels better than broad positioning in 2026's crowded indie market.
The audience for this category tends to cross generational lines. Players who grew up on 1990s PC games, players who came in through the 2010s indie boom, and players new to indies through 2020s word-of-mouth are all represented. The category isn't age-coded the way some indie genres are, which means studios can build for breadth rather than specific cohorts.
Practical buying advice
If you're using this list to build a reading-and-playing library, a few practical suggestions. Most of the games mentioned go on Steam sale at least twice a year, often at 50 percent or more off. Adding them to your wishlist and waiting for the next sale is usually the most cost-efficient approach. Many of the older entries are cheap year-round. The newer ones often go on sale first during Steam's summer or winter sales. HAWKER's Early Access price is below the planned full-release price, which is standard indie practice.
If you play on handheld (Steam Deck, Switch 2, ROG Ally) most of the games above run well on these platforms. The category tends to be performance-friendly because the production values prioritise tone over graphical fidelity. This is worth knowing because category fans often play across multiple platforms.
For readers who want to go deeper
A closing note for curious readers. Every category above has subcategories we didn't fully explore in this piece, because an individual article can't be everything. If a specific entry hooked you, most of the games in this piece have dedicated communities, Subreddits, Discord servers, and developer blogs worth finding. The wider indie gaming press, including Rock Paper Shotgun, PC Gamer, Eurogamer, and Polygon, often does deeper coverage on individual games than a cross-category list can.
For players using this piece as a buying guide, the sales cadence on Steam is predictable. Summer and winter sales are the biggest. Smaller themed sales happen throughout the year. Most of the games mentioned have dropped to 50 percent off or more at least once across 2024 to 2026. Wishlisting the games that interest you is how you'll catch the right sale for the right game. Wishlist HAWKER's September 2026 launch while you're at it if the grimdark shopkeeper roguelite angle interests you.
For developers reading this piece, the practical takeaway is that the category rewards specific positioning more than broad appeal. Every successful entry above knows exactly who it's for. Studios that try to hit multiple audiences with a single game usually hit none of them. Pick a specific shape, commit to it, and ship the version that audience wants rather than the version you hope will please everyone.
Spoiler wall
Everything above keeps Hawker at the level of design and systems. The choice-consequence structure, the debt payments, and the NPC reactions are all shown openly in our trailers. Specific late-game endings and the consequences of late-game moral choices sit behind this wall.
Closing
Lies of P sits in a specific niche: Belle Epoque Soulslike with moral narrative weight. The ten games above deliver pieces of that combination. Bloodborne remains the closest single match, but Lies of P's specific achievement was proving the genre could thrive outside FromSoftware's own studios.
Wishlist HAWKER for Early Access.
Next read: Grimdark indie games in 2026.
Further reading
For related context see parry mechanics in action roguelites, what is a shopkeeper roguelite.