Lies Of P Overture boasts a boss better than Elden Ring's Malenia

I’ve been playing through the new Lies Of P DLC recently, Lies Of P: Overture, and while its challenge is comparable to Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree, I’ve had a great time overcoming it.

Since I played Lies Of P on Xbox Game Pass when it first launched, I’ve been patiently awaiting the DLC expansion, and I couldn’t be more excited to see it’s finally here.

First, a bit of context for those who are new to this IP… Lies Of P is a soulslike game that loosely adapts the original story of Pinocchio, The Story of a Puppet. In the game, you’re awakened in the city of Krat amidst a puppet uprising, where mechanical menaces have revolted against their human masters, slaughtering the majority of the population.

Finding your creator, Geppetto, you’re tasked with discovering what drove the puppets to madness, and defeating the ones responsible. But the rabbit hole goes much deeper than that; along the way, you’ll uncover secrets and discover what really separates a human from a puppet.

Lies Of P: Overture is playable after beating the main story, and sees you travel back in time to before the events of the main game. Set within Krat City Zoo, you’ll be introduced to some new faces, new weapons, and of course, new bosses. The boss I want to talk about today is the second one you’ll face in the DLC, and they’ve quickly become one of my favourites across all soulslike games. She’s called Markiona, Puppeteer of Death, and I’d argue she’s the Lies Of P equivalent to Elden Ring’s Malenia.

Bandai Namco

That’s a bold claim, I know, but I have my reasons. For starters she’s tough. It took me many tries to best her in combat and even then, it felt like I only won by the skin of my teeth. Secondly, she’s fun! Markiona isn’t the only enemy you fight in the arena, and she wields the Queen's Arche Puppet at the same time. Now I’m no stranger to duo bosses, Ornstein and Smough in Dark Souls taught me everything I need to know about fighting two bosses at once, but this fight tested me.

By themselves, neither threat is a huge issue as while they hit hard, Lies Of P has an excellent parry system so fights come down to learning the patterns and breaking their guard whenever possible. The problem lies in how well we complement each other’s moves. Markiona is a master of area denial so when you get too close to her, she’ll initiate large, sweeping heavy attacks that will push you back if you don’t block in time. They also hurt. While you’re trying to close the distance with her, her puppet is trying to close the distance with you, with quick and successive kicks and swipes as well as the occasional charge.

You really can’t afford to focus on one or the other, as even if you try to put some distance between yourself and Markiona and fight the puppet instead, she’ll yank on the tether between them and pull herself over to you, usually following up with a devastating attack.

Once Markiona’s health drops to around halfway, she kicks off her ultimate attack. The puppet glows gold and relentlessly chases you down, with an exploding aura that I had to dodge as the parry window felt so tight. Eventually, the puppet slams into the ground and charges up a brutal explosion move that takes up a huge chunk of the arena, so my only choice was to flee and hope I’d escaped its area of effect.

Soulslikes have always had a lot in common with rhythm games and if Lies Of P’s combat functions like an elaborate dance, the fight with Markiona would be a tango that doesn’t take two people.

Neowiz

The good news is Markiona is the only health bar that matters. If you defeat her, you’ve won the fight. There are two ways to make this fight easier - three if you don’t mind using a summon. The first is to equip hard-hitting poison weapons and throwable items. If you can dodge the puppet and parry her moves, striking back with poison, her health bar will drop quickly. When she starts forcing you back with area-denial moves, you can walk backwards and use your throwables to deal damage while she’s stuck in her animation.

The second method is to focus on the puppet first. If you can deplete the puppet’s health bar, it’ll stun Markiona for a generous amount of time, enough to hit her with everything you’ve got while she begins healing her mechanical friend. It’ll take some time for the puppet to get back on its feet and in the meantime, you’ll still have to fend off Markiona, but as said before, individually they’re much easier opponents to manage.

The third option is to summon the Spectre before the fight to help you out, which I wouldn’t recommend as it made the boss behave far more erratically.

Eventually, after studying, practising, and trying my best, I managed to beat her. Prior to fighting her, I’d have said the toughest boss in the game was Nameless Puppet, the final, optional boss, but I think in terms of how much was going on, Markiona has easily taken that spot. I was getting flashbacks to Malenia the entire time I was fighting her - and like Malenia, despite how soul-shattering some of the losses could feel, I never stopped having fun whilst failing.

Lies Of P: Overture has been a blast so far, and so worth the wait. With a sequel still on the way, I can’t even imagine what wild boss designs the folks at Neowiz will come up with next.