Earlier this week, trademarks were spotted over at the European Union Intellectual Property Office for a videogame or videogame-related Something called ‘Wonders of O’. The trademarks were registered by South Korean company Neowiz, who also happen to be the publishers of excellent puppet-powered soulslike Lies of P.

Given the shared title format, online sleuthyfolks have wasted no time identifying the project as the Lies of P sequel developers Round 8 teased back in 2024, alongside an untitled horror game.

Lies of P is loosely based on Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio stories, and it seems likely that their next game also takes inspiration from a famous European work of fantasy. My mind flew immediately to Anne Desclos’ sadomasochism novel Story of O, published in 1954. The novel – an inspiration for Emmanuelle Arsan’s better-known work of erotica Emmanuelle – attracted strong criticism in its day for its portrayal of female subjection and objectification. It won the Prix des Deux Magots, a prestigious literary award, but was also the subject of obscenity charges and banned even after those charges fell through.

I haven’t read Story of O, but I did stay up late once to watch staticky snippets of the film adaptation, as part of grandiose teenage efforts to “hack into” noted softcore outlet Channel 5 by means of carefully mangled coathangers. After reading through the trademarks, I was fascinated to see how Round8 and Neowiz would apply soulslike combat mechanics to such a fraught account of the human libido. There is already quite a lot of naughty fan art of Lies of P’s protagonist. Then somebody kindly took my elbow via DMs and suggested that maybe, ‘Wonders of O’ is a reference to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, instead.

If you’ve completed Lies of P, you’ll know there are some pretty strong hints about the next game being set in Oz. Heel-clicking and so on. I can certainly imagine Oz being a good setting for a dark fantasy soulslike. Think of the winged monkeys. Think of the 1985 film Return to Oz, with its deserts that turn you to sand, its Wheeler hooligans, its headless witch, and its horrible stone faces.

I’ll only add that if Round8 do set a videogame in Oz, this is the perfect opportunity to make a game-length joke about the practice of covering important landmarks and grabbable surfaces in yellow paint. We’ll sling Neowiz a request for comment. Perhaps if I ask them to confirm it’s an adaptation of the work of a 2020 Leather Hall of Fame inductee, they’ll get back to me faster?