I'm Already In Love With Pentiment, A Historical Murder Mystery From The Director Of Fallout: New Vegas
A pentiment is an image hidden in a painting. As it ages, paint can turn transparent and reveal earlier versions of an artwork. People switch positions, details change, eyes look in different directions. Sometimes there's a political motivation for these changes, other times it's just a matter of personal taste. It's a curious name for a game, but a perfect metaphor for the kinds of malleable interactive narratives made by veteran RPG studio Obsidian.
Set in 16th Century Bavaria, at the transition point between the medieval and modern ages, Pentiment is a historical murder mystery. Journeyman artist Andreas Maler is working at Kiersau Abbey, a monastic scriptoria, when a man is brutally murdered and his friend and mentor is wrongly (as far as he knows, anyway) accused of the crime. The murder is officially being investigated by the archdeacon, but Andreas takes it upon himself to solve it.
Related: I'm Still Annoyed More People Didn't Play Pillars Of Eternity 2, Because It's One Of The Best RPGs Ever Made
Obsidian makes great role-playing games. Pillars of Eternity, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, Alpha Protocol, and Fallout: New Vegas are just a few of its greatest hits. But Pentiment is something very different for the developer. It's primarily a narrative adventure, compared by director Josh Sawyer in an interview to story-driven games like Night in the Woods and Oxenfree. But true to Obsidian's house style, choice, consequence, and reactivity will feature heavily.
It's a game about studying evidence, interviewing people, and figuring out who has a motivation for murdering your friend. You talk to monks, nuns, scholars, and villagers—and according to Sawyer, who you accuse is entirely up to you. If you point
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