A trademark application filed with the European Union Intellectual Property Office on September 10, 2026 has become the biggest gaming story of the week, not because anyone officially announced a game, but because nobody did. Neowiz’s filing for “Wonders of O,” first reported by Nintendo Wire and quickly picked up by GamesRadar+, eXputer, and PSU.com, is widely read as the working title for the Lies of P sequel. Neowiz has not confirmed it. For the full breakdown of what leaked and what didn’t, see our earlier coverage of the Wonders of O leak. That gap between filing and confirmation is exactly the point of this story. Trademark offices have quietly become the games industry’s most reliable leak channel, and “Wonders of O” is only the latest example of publishers effectively pre-announcing titles through paperwork instead of press conferences.
Zoom out from the single filing and a pattern snaps into focus. In the same four months, Sony Interactive Entertainment and CD Projekt each filed trademarks that outlets correctly decoded weeks before either company said a word publicly. This piece looks at what the “Wonders of O” filing actually says, why trademark registries have become a de facto reveal mechanism, and what that shift means for how publishers, journalists, and players now consume game news.
What Neowiz actually filed, and what it doesn’t prove
The EUIPO record shows Neowiz as the applicant for “Wonders of O,” filed on September 10, 2026, and listed under Nice Classes 9 and 41, the same two classes used for the original Lies of P sequel trademark work. Class 9 covers downloadable game software, and Class 41 covers online gaming and entertainment services. As of this week the application status shows as under examination, not registered, which is a legally meaningful distinction. A pending filing means Neowiz has staked a claim to the name, but it does not mean the game is finished, dated, or even locked to that title. The application itself is searchable through the EUIPO’s public eSearch database.
What makes the inference plausible rather than speculative is the naming pattern. The original game took its title from Pinocchio, using the single letter “P,” and built a dark, blood-soaked reinterpretation of Carlo Collodi’s story. “Wonders of O” mirrors that structure almost exactly, with “O” widely read as standing in for Oz, from L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Outlets including GamesRadar+ have pointed to post-credits material in the original Lies of P, including imagery and a tease connected to Dorothy, that fans have picked apart since the game launched, which is why the trademark landed as confirmation of a fan theory rather than a surprise out of nowhere.
Why a filing, and not a trailer
Trademark applications are public by design. The EUIPO, the USPTO, and Japan’s JPO all publish new filings on a rolling basis, and a cottage industry of gaming outlets and social accounts exists specifically to monitor them for exactly this kind of signal. A publisher cannot secure exclusive rights to a title without filing for it, and it cannot file without the filing becoming visible to anyone who checks. That built-in transparency is what turns routine legal housekeeping into an accidental marketing event.
It also explains why studios keep doing it anyway. Filing early protects a name against squatters and competitors while the game is still deep in production. Neowiz reportedly disclosed during its first-quarter 2026 earnings call that the Lies of P sequel had moved into full-scale development, well before any title was public. Waiting to file until a marketing team is ready for a trailer risks losing the name to someone else in the interim. The leak is a side effect of a legal precaution, not a calculated teaser campaign, though publishers have clearly learned to work around, and sometimes lean into, the attention it generates.
Case study: Sony’s “Break In” and the State of Play countdown
The clearest recent precedent for this pattern came from Sony. In May 2026, Sony Interactive Entertainment filed trademarks for “Break In” in both the United States and Europe, under the same Class 9 and Class 41 combination now attached to “Wonders of O.” The filing landed just days ahead of a scheduled PlayStation State of Play showcase, and outlets immediately connected the dots. Speculation split between a brand-new project and a rebrand of Fairgame$, the competitive heist game from Sony subsidiary Haven Studios that had gone quiet after a troubled reveal years earlier. Sony did not confirm details around the trademark itself, and the filing’s exact relationship to Fairgame$ remains unresolved in public reporting, but the sequence of a quiet filing, a public leak, and a scheduled showcase is now a recognizable template.
Case study: CD Projekt’s “Songs of the Past” goes from leak to Gamescom stage
CD Projekt supplies the cleanest before-and-after case study available. The company filed a EUIPO trademark for “Songs of the Past” on May 27, 2026, covering game software, merchandise, and online services. Reporting at the time connected it to a new piece of Witcher 3 content, but CD Projekt kept the details under wraps for roughly three months. The studio then confirmed the project itself at Gamescom’s Opening Night Live on August 25, 2026, revealing “Songs of the Past” as a full paid expansion for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, co-developed with external studio Fool’s Theory and set in a new region called Letten, with a 2027 release window across PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2. The trademark called the shot months in advance, and the studio simply chose the moment and staging on its own terms.
Three filings, one playbook: side-by-side comparison
Laid out together, the three cases show just how consistent the pattern has become across three different publishers on two continents, none of whom appear to be coordinating with each other.
| Trademark | Publisher | Filing date | Jurisdiction | First to report | Official confirmation |
| Wonders of O | Neowiz | September 10, 2026 | EUIPO | Nintendo Wire | Not yet confirmed |
| Break In | Sony Interactive Entertainment | May 20, 2026 | USPTO & EUIPO | Gematsu | Unconfirmed link to Fairgame$ |
| Songs of the Past | CD Projekt | May 27, 2026 | EUIPO | Multiple outlets | Confirmed at Gamescom, August 25, 2026 |
The Class 9 and Class 41 combination shows up in every row, which is not a coincidence. It is simply the standard pairing for any studio protecting a game title and its associated online services in one filing. What varies is the gap between leak and confirmation. CD Projekt closed that gap in about three months and on its own schedule. Sony still has not closed it. Neowiz’s window opened four days ago, which puts it squarely in the “wait and see” phase that both other cases passed through first.
Round8 Studio, the NOUGH question, and where development actually stands
Development of the Lies of P sequel has not been a secret in broad strokes. Neowiz confirmed a sequel was in the works back in 2023, and the company’s Q1 2026 earnings commentary described the project as having moved past prototyping into full-scale production. Round8 Studio, the internal Neowiz team behind the original game, has been reported by some outlets under a restructured or rebranded internal designation, though Neowiz itself has not issued a formal statement detailing any studio name change alongside the trademark news. None of that changes the core fact pattern: a known team, on a confirmed sequel, filed a trademark that fits a title fans had already guessed. The trademark didn’t create the story, it validated one that had been circulating since the first game’s ending. It’s a similar dynamic to the one we covered when reports surfaced about the franchise’s wider six-game slate and its AI-art backlash, where scattered signals eventually solidified into a confirmed pattern.
Why this matters more than a normal rumor
Ordinary game rumors rely on anonymous sources, leaked build footage, or job listings that hint at a genre or setting. A trademark filing is different in kind: it is a primary-source legal document, filed by the company itself, in a public registry, under its own name. That is why outlets treat trademark stories with more confidence than a typical rumor, even while being careful to note that a title is not a confirmed product. It is also why these stories travel fast and wide across gaming media within hours of being spotted. At least half a dozen outlets, from PSU.com to GamingBolt to TwistedVoxel, covered the “Wonders of O” filing on the same day it surfaced.
Market and momentum impact for Neowiz
Available reporting does not point to any confirmed stock movement or formal investor statement tied specifically to the “Wonders of O” filing. The coverage so far is editorial and fan-driven rather than market-driven. What the filing does buy Neowiz, at no marketing spend, is a fresh wave of attention on a franchise that already proved its commercial footing: the original Lies of P had sold 1 million copies by early 2024, a figure still cited as the sequel’s baseline in 2026 coverage. A trademark leak this close to Tokyo Game Show 2026 also lands at a moment when eyes are already on Japanese and Korean publishers, giving Neowiz free amplification it did not have to pay for or script.
The risk side: when trademark speculation gets it wrong
The pattern is not foolproof. Sony’s “Break In” trademark is still unresolved four months after filing, and reporting has split between two competing theories, a new IP or a Fairgame$ rebrand, without Sony ever settling the question publicly. That uncertainty is a useful reminder that a trademark confirms a name a company wants to protect, not the product, platform, or release window attached to it. Readers and outlets that treat every filing as a confirmed reveal risk being wrong in the same way blind rumor-chasing has always risked being wrong. The difference is that the underlying document is real even when the interpretation of it isn’t. The industry has seen the opposite failure mode too, where a fully built project quietly changes hands or platforms behind the scenes, as reporting on Physint’s move away from PlayStation showed earlier this year, proof that even confirmed projects can still surprise everyone before launch.
Trademark leaks versus scheduled reveal events
It’s worth comparing this leak-driven pattern against the traditional showcase model publishers have relied on for years, including State of Play, Nintendo Direct, Xbox events, and Gamescom’s Opening Night Live. The two approaches are not mutually exclusive, as the “Songs of the Past” case shows: the trademark leaked the name months ahead, and CD Projekt still got its full staged reveal at Gamescom. But they serve different purposes and carry different tradeoffs.
| Factor | Trademark filing leak | Scheduled showcase reveal |
| Who controls timing | Nobody, the public registry publishes on its own schedule | Publisher sets the date and format |
| Cost to publisher | Filing fee only, no production cost | Trailer, stage production, marketing spend |
| Narrative control | Low, outlets and fans fill in the gaps | High, publisher frames the story |
| Speed of media pickup | Same day, multiple outlets within hours | Same day, but pre-scheduled and embargoed |
| Confirmation certainty | Name only, no gameplay or platform details | Full reveal, often with a release window |
Neither format is disappearing. Showcases remain the moment publishers actually sell a game to players with gameplay footage and pricing. Trademark filings, whether publishers like it or not, have become the moment the internet finds out the name first, a dynamic that also played out around the Fairgame$ footage leak tied to Project Espresso, where unreleased material surfaced well ahead of any planned reveal.
Historical context: trademark-sleuthing before it was a strategy
Trademark watching in gaming media is not new. Dedicated trademark trackers have flagged unannounced titles for well over a decade, often years ahead of release. What has changed by 2026 is the speed and scale of the pickup. A filing that once might have circulated on a single specialist forum now reaches mainstream gaming outlets within the same news cycle, amplified by social platforms that reward being first. The “Wonders of O” filing went from EUIPO database entry to a multi-outlet story spanning Nintendo Wire, GamesRadar+, eXputer, PSU.com, VGTimes, and iXBT, all inside a matter of days. That compression is itself part of the story: publishers now have to assume any filing will be public knowledge almost immediately, which removes any illusion of a quiet, controlled paper trail.
What this means for other franchises still under wraps
Every publisher sitting on an unannounced sequel now faces the same tradeoff Neowiz, Sony, and CD Projekt just navigated in public. File early to protect a name and risk a leak, or wait and risk losing the name to a copycat or squatter while the game stays secret. Given that all three 2026 cases chose to file well before any formal reveal, the practical lesson other studios appear to be drawing is that legal protection outweighs the leak risk — especially once a franchise has an established fan base actively looking for exactly this kind of signal. That fan attention was on full display at Gamescom 2026’s record-breaking attendance, where publishers competed for headlines against a backdrop of exactly this kind of pre-show speculation.
Predictions: where trademark-driven reveals go from here
- Expect Neowiz to address “Wonders of O” only once it is ready for a full reveal, likely tied to a future showcase rather than a standalone statement — following the CD Projekt playbook rather than rushing a response to the leak.
- Sony’s “Break In” trademark will probably resolve one way or the other before the end of 2026, given how long the Fairgame$-rebrand theory has already circulated without an official denial or confirmation.
- More publishers will likely start filing trademarks in bundles or with intentionally generic placeholder names specifically to blunt the leak effect, a countermeasure some trademark watchers have already flagged in prior years.
- Gaming outlets will keep building dedicated trademark-monitoring coverage, since stories like “Wonders of O” reliably generate fast, high-engagement traffic at effectively zero reporting cost, a trend worth tracking alongside our broader 2026 gaming industry coverage.
- Expect at least one more major EUIPO or USPTO filing tied to an unannounced sequel to break as a top gaming story before the end of 2026, given how frequently this pattern has already repeated this year.
What Neowiz gains, and risks, by staying quiet
Silence has a cost and a benefit here. By not confirming or denying “Wonders of O,” Neowiz keeps optionality — it can still change the title, adjust scope, or time a full reveal to a moment of its own choosing, exactly as CD Projekt did with “Songs of the Past.” The cost is that the internet is already writing the story without them: the Oz connection, the Dorothy tease, the naming pattern, and the sequel’s development timeline are all being stitched together by outlets and fans in the absence of an official statement. For a franchise built on a single breakout hit, that free attention is arguably more useful than it is risky, provided the eventual reveal doesn’t badly contradict what’s already been reported.
Frequently asked questions
Is “Wonders of O” officially confirmed as the Lies of P sequel?
No. Neowiz has filed a trademark for the name but has not officially confirmed it as the sequel’s title, platform list, or release window.
Where was the Wonders of O trademark filed?
With the European Union Intellectual Property Office, under Nice Classes 9 and 41, filed on September 10, 2026, according to reporting from Nintendo Wire and other outlets.
Why do people think Wonders of O is connected to The Wizard of Oz?
The original Lies of P used “P” for Pinocchio, and “Wonders of O” follows the same naming structure, with “O” widely interpreted as a reference to Oz. Outlets have also pointed to a post-credits Dorothy-related tease in the first game as supporting evidence.
How far along is development of the Lies of P sequel?
Neowiz stated in its Q1 2026 earnings commentary that the project had progressed into full-scale development, though no release window has been given.
Is filing a trademark before a game announcement a common strategy?
It’s less a deliberate marketing strategy than a legal necessity that happens to leak publicly. Sony’s “Break In” and CD Projekt’s “Songs of the Past” filings both followed the same pattern in 2026 before either project was formally revealed.
Did Sony ever confirm what Break In is?
Not as of this writing. Reporting has speculated it may be tied to Haven Studios’ Fairgame$, but Sony has not issued an official statement confirming or denying that link.
How many copies has the original Lies of P sold?
The original Lies of P had sold 1 million copies by early 2024, a figure still cited in 2026 coverage as the benchmark for the sequel’s commercial expectations.
Where can I verify a game trademark filing myself?
The EUIPO maintains a public, searchable database of all filings, including pending applications like Wonders of O, at its official eSearch portal.
