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Pentiment is an adventure video game by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Xbox Game Studios. The game was released on November 15, 2022, for Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S platforms.

Pentiment
Developer(s)	Obsidian Entertainment
Publisher(s)	Xbox Game Studios
Director(s)	Josh Sawyer
Producer(s)	Alec Frey
Artist(s)	Hannah Kennedy
Composer(s)	Alkemie Early Music Ensemble
Platform(s)	Windows Xbox One Xbox Series X/S
Release	November 15, 2022 (2022-11-15)
Genre(s)	Adventure, role-playing
Mode(s)	Single-player

Gameplay

Pentiment is a narrative adventure role-playing video game set in Bavaria in the 16th century.[1] The player, as the journeyman artist Andreas Maler, investigates the murder of a prominent person for which his friend has been accused. The story spans 25 years and never canonically reveals the true murderer. Instead the player is meant to accuse an individual based on either who they think did it or who most deserves punishment. Concurrent with the main murder plot are other crimes and conspiracies.[2]

The game's art style is a mix of late medieval manuscripts, early print, and woodcuts at the transition from late medieval to early modern art.[2] The music for the game was composed and performed by Alkemie Early Music Ensemble. As game director Josh Sawyer says, "[Alkemie is] a music group, they compose and record as an ensemble...the music they've contributed to the game is either strictly historical or historically inspired."[3]

Plot

The plot of Pentiment takes place in distinct acts, each act focusing on a different incident connecting the town's enduring mystery. In Act I, 1518, Andreas Maler is serving an apprenticeship as an illuminator at Keirsau Abbey, outside the small Upper Bavarian town of Tassing. One day in April, Baron Lorenz Rothvogel, a friend of the Prince-Bishop of Freising and longtime benefactor of Keirsau, pays a visit to check on the progress of a manuscript he commissioned. He openly expresses dissatisfaction with the style of the manuscript's illuminator, the elderly Brother Piero, and insists that Andreas complete the remaining illustrations. The next day, Rothvogel is found stabbed to death in the abbey's chapter house. Concerned that the baron's murder could damage the abbey's reputation and lead to its dissolution, Abbot Gernot assumes Piero, who was the first to discover the body, committed the crime and has him detained until Jacob Estler, archdeacon to the prince-bishop, can conduct an inquiry. Andreas believes Piero is innocent, however, and begins an investigation of his own. With a limited time before the archdeacon arrives, Andreas must gather as much information as possible about the murder. His investigations lead him to suspect several people of the crime, none of which he has convincing evidence to convict, all of whom have possible motives. Deepening the mystery are the presence of notes, written in an extremely ornate hand, sent to all those who would want the Baron dead that seem to goad them into the crime. Depending on his choices, one of the suspects are executed in the town square, and the attitudes of the townspeople in your future gameplay changes depending on your choices.

In Act II, Andreas has completed his mastership and has become a famous illuminator, and returns to pay his respects to the late Brother Piero, whom he saw as a friend and mentor, bringing his apprentice Caspar whom he treats as a surrogate son. He struggles with depression, having pursued his passion but finding the results lacking, as he is forced to paint vain commissions for nobles rather than focus on life's truths, as Piero advised, in addition to the death of his young son August from plague, which has strained his marriage. In town, a conflict is brewing between the abbey and the townspeople. The abbey, having lost many of its financiers and patrons after the death of the Baron, is heavily taxing the peasants in town to the brink of starvation. Otto, a charismatic firebrand, is rallying the town against Gernot, the abbot, who is inflexible in treatment of the peasants. Andreas steps in as a mediator, but after Otto is murdered in a staged accident, the father of the poorest household, Peter, becomes the new leader and demands violence against the abbey and its monks. Andreas has a limited amount of time to solve the case, as the lord's men are arriving within two days. Again, all of those with motivations against Otto have received cryptic letters in an ornate script encouraging the murder. As in Act I, there are several characters with possible motives to kill Otto, and all have equally valid yet inconclusive sets of evidence against them; it is up to the player, ultimately, to decide whom to convict. Whoever is chosen is killed by the mob, and in the chaos, the library of the abbey catches fire. Andreas rushes inside to save the books, and is killed as the abbey burns down. The lord's soldiers, seeing the burning abbey, assume that the townspeople must be revolting and kill many characters in a terrible massacre.

In Act III, we play Magdalene, the daughter of the town printer, a friend of Andreas. It has been 18 years since the revolt and burning of the abbey and much has changed, although the scars on both the town and its people have not yet healed. Her father is attacked in the night and left bedridden with a near-fatal head wound; Magdalene, a talented artist, takes over the painting of a mural in the newly constructed Rathaus. She plans to make the mural about the history of the town, in three distinct parts of pagan, early Christian, and contemporary history. She interacts with many characters from previous parts in order to hear their recollections of your actions, and of the events in general. During this she is consistently threatened with the ornate letters, as well as stalked by a hooded figure as she investigates the history of the town. Depending on what the player discovers about Tassing's history, they may choose to paint one of several scenes on each part of the mural, including the player's conclusions on Act II.

At the climax of the game, we discover that the hooded figure is Andreas, who did not die in the events of Act II due to his apprentice Caspar's sacrifice. Living with the guilt of not only Caspar's death, but the deaths which he decided in Acts I and II, deaths founded on incomplete and inconclusive evidence, he has become a broken man, retreating from society and surviving in the woods for the past two decades. Andreas and Magdalene work together to solve the murders; they eventually find that the local priest, Thomas, is the culprit. Exploring the ancient Roman ruins underneath the town, he discovered that the two Christian saints, Saint Moritz and Tasia, are actually reinterpretations of the pagan gods Ares and Diana. Apalled that the faith of the town was based upon heresy, he killed those who were close to finding the secret of the town. Baron Rothvogel was killed because he intended to donate a rare copy of a history book, which may have revealed this fact, to the abbot. Otto was killed after he found the head of Saint Moritz, truly the head of a broken Roman statue, intending to reveal it as a divine artifact to motivate the villagers, and not understanding the phrase "Mars Pater" written on its brow. Finally, he attacked Magdalene's father because his mural work was to be a history of the town, and vocally advocated for the mural to be cancelled. The ornate letters which were sent to those that might have cause against the victims were written by an anchorite under Thomas' manipulation, in fits in which Thomas pretended to be God, giving her "divine" messages to write down. His panoptic letters to the possible suspects are due to his breaking of the seal of confession, purposefully using the townspeople's confessions to frame them. Thomas commits suicide while destroying the evidence of Moritz and Tasia's origins, leaving Magdalene and Andreas to decide how to paint the fourth part of the mural; to preserve Thomas' lies for the greater good, or to reveal their pagan origins. Depending on the choices made in this part, we see the final mural that Magdalene paints, as well as a family tree of the villagers painted by Andreas, showing his return to art and recovery from his guilt and depression.

Development

Game developer Josh Sawyer first pitched Pentiment to Feargus Urquhart when they worked at Black Isle Studios. Sawyer was inspired by the historical fiction of Darklands, a 1992 role-playing video game by MicroProse that combined the Middle Ages with supernatural themes. Urquhart thought it would have little appeal outside of history afficionados. Sawyer pitched Urquhart again, years later, when they both worked at Obsidian Entertainment, following the release of the 2018 Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire. He reframed the game as a narrative adventure with mystery components and gameplay similar to Night in the Woods or Oxenfree. The small development team was commensurate with the game's niche attraction. Sawyer credited art director Hannah Kennedy's art style and interest in the concept as being vital to the project's early support. The team looked at illuminated medieval manuscripts in the Getty Museum and Huntington Library in California for inspiration, as well as consulting with manuscript experts such as Christopher de Hamel.[4] They initially worked as a team of two,[2] later the team was expanded to 13 people.[4]

Microsoft's acquisition of Obsidian in 2018 brought the game accessibility and localization support, such as a mode with typefaces easier to read, features like text to speech, and robust translations for non-English speakers in a text-heavy game.[2]

Pentiment was released on November 15, 2022 for Xbox and Windows platforms.[5]

Reception

Pentiment received "generally favorable reviews", according to the review aggregator Metacritic.[6][7]

IGN praised the time pressure mechanic, saying it made the game more tense and added replayability "you're never given enough time to pursue them all [leads]. This added some welcome tension and forced me to make a lot of interesting decisions". Destructoid liked how there was no "golden route" and you had benefits and downsides with each choice made. GamesRadar+ loved the setting, feeling it captured the anxiety of the time, "the dawning of a new age is palpable, and the struggle to come to terms with it rumbles furiously throughout, whether from monks still painstakingly scribing tomes... or young firebrands who've learned to read and question authority". While criticizing the unclear choice mechanic, PC Gamer enjoyed the village and the role that they play in the story, "over 25 years of chats, shared meals... That makes it all the harder when you want to condemn a family man for a crime he might not actually have committed".

The Guardian liked the writing of the game, "The dialogue drips with fascinating historical detail, supported by an extensive glossary of terms". PCGamesN disliked the pacing, saying it was "told at something between walking pace and the movement of tectonic plates". Polygon praised the art style, feeling the drawings "immediately bring a sense of style to what otherwise might be a dry history".[20]

References

Further reading

External links

• Official website

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