As with Barlow's previous title, Her Story, the game uses live action full-motion video of four people (played by Logan Marshall-Green, Alexandra Shipp, Kerry Bishé, and Angela Sarafyan) as part of video calls made between them, and the player will need to use tools provided from the game to piece together events and what statements may be lies to determine the overall mystery.

[1] Telling Lies provides the player with numerous video segments that in the game's narrative, cover a two-year period and which have been stored on a stolen hard-drive taken from the National Security Agency.

[2][1] Players can scroll forwards and backwards within segments, highlight certain words in the video subtitles to use as search, and keep notes within an in-game memo pad.

[1] The player only has a limited amount of time within a single playthrough to scan material from the hard-drive, and would have to restart from scratch (losing all notes and bookmarks) if they want to see more.

A new Black Kite spy infiltrates Green Storm, and David coordinates with him to trap Riordan into getting involved in a direct attack on the bridge.

The plan goes awry, and David discovers that Mike and Black Kite have decided to hold off on Green Storm, and arrest the Organizing Group.

To cope with stress, David had been having conversations with a sex worker named Maxine Williams, who ran a webcam chatroom with multiple aliases.

Maxine leaves her place in Cleveland, Ohio and opens a cam agency in New York, going on to become a novelist writing crime stories with ‘strong female leads’.

Barlow's work on Telling Lies began in January 2016 as a "spiritual successor" to Her Story, with a narrative unrelated to the first game, though it continued to use full-motion video as its central gameplay element.

In this fashion, the actors recorded their lines in their separate locations over video conferencing calls, with Barlow and other directors running between the sets as needed to provide direction.

"[26] Kotaku praised the story and acting, saying that "the cast of Telling Lies is uniformly excellent, delivering performances far beyond anything I've seen in an FMV game.

[23] IGN found the user interface to be somewhat unintuitive, but said that "every one of its short video clips is packed with meaning, and working out where you should go next is rewarding because each subplot is gripping.

[29] The Guardian praised it as an expansion of concepts in Her Story, saying that the game "doesn't hold your hand, and ultimately it's down to you to decide the truth – another secret of a good mystery done well.

"[30] EGM also complimented its shift from the murder mystery in Her Story to a political thriller, calling it "a thought-provoking look at the modern surveillance state—delivered not through soapbox lecture but by forcing you, unsettlingly, to participate.

"[32] Rock Paper Shotgun called it "bigger, better, faster, stronger" than Her Story, while saying that the nature of the found video made the game feel more voyeuristic.

[34] GameSpot criticized the lack of structure, saying "the mechanics, writing, and performances create a real feeling of peering into someone else's private world all the way through, but the game doesn't give you much in the way of agency.