Telling Lies

About this game

A Video Game About Private Conversations

Telling Lies is the new video game from Sam Barlow, creator of Her Story and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. An investigative thriller game with non-linear storytelling, Telling Lies revolves around a cache of secretly recorded video conversations. It stars Logan Marshall-Green, Alexandra Shipp, Kerry Bishé and Angela Sarafyan.

How does it work?

Telling Lies sits you in front of an anonymous laptop loaded with a stolen NSA database full of footage. The footage covers two years in the intimate lives of four people whose stories are linked by a shocking incident. Explore the database by typing search terms, watch the clips where those words are spoken and piece together your story.

Unlike anything you've played before, Telling Lies is an intimate and intense experience. A game where you decide the truth.

Latest news

• Press Coverage·26 Jan 2023

  JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and Hot Wheels coming to PC Game Pass soon

  After a mysterious delay from December, arcade racing game Hot Wheels Unleashed will finally arrive on PC Game Pass in early February. I hear it's pretty good! It's one of the small handful of games Microsoft have confirmed as coming to PC Game Pass in the next fortnight, which also include the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure fighting game and a return to the subscription service for Darkest Dungeon. Alas, games coming mean games going. Do check out Donut County before it's swallowed by the abyss. Read more
  Read full article on Rock, Paper, Shotgun

• Press Coverage·14 Jun 2021

  Telling Lies developer's next game is Immortality, about a missing movie star

  The developer of swell narrative games Her Story and Telling Lies teased his next project last summer with a rather redacted store page. Half Mermaid and Sam Barlow's next game, Immortality, has now been slightly more revealed to be a story about the disappearance of movie star Marissa Marcel. We don't know much more than that, but it sure does sound like another twisty mystery is in store. Read more
  Read full article on Rock, Paper, Shotgun

• Announcements·9 Jun 2021Official

  THIS SUNDAY: Project Ambrosio Reveal

  We haven't released many details about Project Ambrosio, the next title from Telling Lies creator Sam Barlow, but this Sunday, as part of The Future Games Show, we're letting a few more into the world. We will peel back the ██████! The show will be streamed on Sunday, June 13 at 4PM PDT / 7PM EDT /12AM* Midnight BST / 1AM* CEST (*The morning of June 14) on Twitter, Twitch, Facebook, YouTube, and GamesRadar. Remember: celluloid is highly flammable 🔥🔥🔥 {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38142527/6703a9ba86053da0fa9ab4ab7ea6c8e205b45793.png
  Read full article on Community Announcements (TheBeff)

• Announcements·28 Aug 2020Official

  Telling Lies 1st Anniversary!

  It's been over a year since Telling Lies dropped on Steam! Thank you to everyone who has played, streamed, wishlisted, talked about and otherwise supported the game over the past twelve months. In order to celebrate this milestone, Sam Barlow, the creator of Telling Lies, Her Story, and the upcoming Project A███████, will stream the game, shedding light on its development, production, and design. Join Sam this Wednesday @ 1PM Eastern. Set a reminder from this page so you don't miss uncovering the making of this story of four private lives and the lies that bind them. If you enjoyed the game and want to stay up to date on what Sam and the rest of the team is up to, make sure to follow the studio, Half Mermaid and wishlist our next project!
  Read full article on Community Announcements (TheBeff)

• Press Coverage·23 Dec 2019

  Telling Lies' FMV performances modernise the way we tell stories in games

  Looking through the casefile of this year's best games, the evidence shows that it's been a fantastic year for desktop detectives—from the painting that killed its creator in Tangle Tower, to the ancient, planet spanning mystery that runs through Outer Wilds. Jenny LeClue, Later Alligator, Frog Detective 2 and even Disco Elysium—there was no shortage of clues to track down and suspects to question. I've enjoyed scratching my head over all of these mysteries, but Telling Lies is one that had me glued to my computer—late nights in the office surrounded by empty cups of coffee and scribbled notes, not wanting to leave until I had figured it out. With the game's predecessor, Her Story, Sam Barlow handed us one woman's testimony recorded over the course of a month. With Telling Lies he gives us the tangled testimonies, twisted timelines and half-truths of four people who have all come together because of one lie.  Telling Lies tasks players with looking through an NSA database filled with recorded clips of the personal conversations of four people, unaware that they have been surveyed and recorded. Type keywords into a search bar and videos where someone has used that word will pop up in the search results, with a cap of five videos per search. The whole mystery and how to solve it is hidden within the spoken words of these four people, and, after looking through hundreds of video files of the same characters over and over again, you quickly learn that it's not only what they say that matters but also how they said it. Logan Marshall-Green, Alexandra Shipp, Kerry Bishé and Angela Sarafyan play the four troubled characters, and every second of their FMV performances are extraordinary—they pin this whole mystery together. As a seasoned detective this 'ain't my first rodeo, so as well as listening to what they are saying, I'm watching their body language. What was that awkward shuffle about? ...
  Read full article on PC Gamer