Pentimentisn’tObsidian Entertainment’s usual fare; a studio famed for its engaging and expansive RPGs taking on a compact narrative adventure? It seemed a weird choice. However, once you peel back the surface layer of Josh Sawyer’s upcoming title, it becomes clear that Pentiment is an Obsidian title after all, expertly threaded with all the RPG elements that make each player’s experience unique. I recently had the opportunity to attend a press stream hosted by Sawyer and Pentiment’s art director Hannah Kennedy, as well as going hands-on with the game at Gamescom.
Pentiment is the brainchild of Sawyer and a small team of history enthusiasts at Obsidian Entertainment. The team of fewer than ten people has crafted an intimate narrative experience. Sawyer is a through-and-through history lover, having earned a degree in the field. He shared that he has a specific interest in the location and time period of Pentiment - sixteenth-century Upper Bavaria. Some of his academic work centred on this time/location combination but was focused on contemporary witch-hunting rather than the elements we see highlighted in Pentiment. Sawyer was plain in saying “I didn’t want to make a game about witch-hunting.”
I was curious about whether there were any conception issues with Pentiment. Sawyer acknowledged that the game wasn’t very elevator-pitchable and the studio was sceptical at first but one big factor made Pentiment possible: Game Pass. The legendary studio was acquired byXbox Game Studiosback in 2018 and had been looking for a game to feature on Game Pass, which provides opportunities for a smaller-scale title like Pentiment.
Sawyer went on to say while his first pitches weren’t popular, they grew on people eventually. Given that Obsidian is best known for classic RPGs likePillars of Eternity, and has recently been dabbling in the survival genre withGrounded, what kind of unique challenges did a quirky game like Pentiment present? The team lacked specialists, requiring everyone to become a bit of a jack-of-all-trades. Animations also proved tough as Pentiment required a style that Obsidian’s animation team had never tackled before.
A brilliant academic turning to the hedonistic arts
The team has been very careful to make the premise of Pentiment historically accurate. Everything in Pentiment could have plausibly happened during this time period. For example, double monasteries (institutions containing both monks and nuns) were being phased out by the Church at this time. Still, since the fictional town of Kirsau where Pentiment takes place is a bit stuck in the past and conservative (in a weird world where conservatism is equated with equality), it still operates as a double monastery.
Research for the game’s art direction was its own challenge, and Hannah Kennedy explained how helpful online library and museum archives were for getting the feel for the art of the time period. Manuscripts and written works are a major part of Pentiment and Kennedy had the opportunity to physically go and see 16th-century preserved manuscripts which proved helpful in getting a proper feel for what the art team was trying to recreate in-game. The team also regularly consulted historians to further shore up the authenticity of the project.
Going hands-on with the game, Pentiment oozes authenticity, and the team hasn’t compromised at all with the art style. Right from the off you’re making choices for protagonist Maler. you’re able to influence various parts of his personality and academic background, shaping his motivations and the road that brought him to Bavaria. Predictably, your choices will have plot and dialogue implications later. Sawyer may have emphasised that this isn’t an RPG, but that Obsidian touch still comes across clearly.
In the demo, I helped an elderly widow named Ottilia - a grouchy lady with a bone to pick with the Church. Maler performs various chores for the widow in the hopes that she’ll provide a lead in an ongoing murder investigation, which serves as the basis for Pentiment’s plot. Near the end of your time with Ottilia, you help arrange pictures on her wall. When she asks you to take down the cross the hanging cross, Maler can further explore her problems with the church and local abott. This was one of the design choices that Sawyer spoke about in the press stream, Pentiment’s mini-games and puzzles are in place primarily for ambience. It’s not a game that’s going to challenge you and it’s not meant to be.
One of the coolest features of Pentiment is its font system. Pentiment employs a series of different fonts that indicate the background of the character, such as monk dialogue appearing in a monastic script as if the words were being read from a manuscript. The text doesn’t appear all at once either, but filters in as if it’s being handwritten, with the correct stroke order of the letters being accounted for. Despite the work that went into this feature, Obsidian acknowledge from an accessibility standpoint that fancy fonts aren’t always practical so the option of having cleaner and more readable fonts is available right from the beginning of the game.
Pentiment also provides an extensive glossary that includes characters and historical terms that the player may not be familiar with. These “links” will be followable within dialogue for ease of access. This is a nice touch that lets you keep track of the multitude of characters you will be interacting with throughout Pentiment and also keeps you in the loop so you’re not overwhelmed with unfamiliar terms. Obsidian has really blended functionality, authenticity and atmosphere with Pentiment, and they look like they’ll hit the mark on all three.
Emerging from the hands-on, I was beyond excited to get to the bottom of a murder mystery that spans over 25 years according to Sawyer. Pentiment may not be a game that has wide appeal - narrative adventures aren’t for everyone and some simply aren’t interested in period pieces - but one can’t help but admire the artistry that’s been put into this title. For those that do play it, I think this one is going to be really special.
