One of the teams behind Neowiz’s Souls-like Lies of P has released a short documentary detailing how they kept “testing and refining” the game before its release, as well as offering a little insight into its hardcore “games by gamers” culture.

The internal team at Round8, known as Nough, said the name stems from “not enough, but without the e” because “we’re never enough, there’s always room to improve, so when we develop games, we keep refining them because they can always be better”.

With defining traits described as “tenacity” and “determination”, the studio says this is why it’s committed to “creating better games”.

“The players can always tell,” said director Choi Jiwon. “As a gamer myself, I know they can tell when a game has been made with real dedication. So whenever we’re developing a game, we always approach it as players first.

“We are gamers before we are developers. So we keep testing and refining without compromise until everyone on the team is genuinely satisfied with what we’ve made.”

The video then explores its “games by gamers” culture, explaining how the Nough team is given the opportunity to participate in playtesting sessions “where the entire development team and director Jiwon Choi play the game together to validate the game structure”.

“Iterative feedback is core to the team’s process for completing a game and showcases the team’s dedication to crafting a satisfying final product,” the studio added. “This offers a glimpse into Nough Studio’s unique dedication to viewing games from a gamer’s perspective and continuously refining the gameplay experience to achieve a high level of polish.”

As for what’s next? Jiwon Choi teased that Nough’s next unannounced project will be “really fun and emotionally moving”.

“We’re giving it everything we have to make it the best it can be. So please, just wait a little longer,” he said. “You won’t be disappointed, we promise. This is the truth, not a lie.”

Eurogamer’s three-star review of 2023’s Lies of P said it has “strong enough foundations in its edgy tone and tweaked weapons”, but “it’s highly unlikely that they’ll be able to beat the originals at their own game”.

Neowiz is clearly interested in expanding the IP and turning it into an enduring franchise. We’ve known for over two years that a sequel was happening, but we recently learned it’s entered the “vertical slice” stage.