Pentiment Announcement Trailer and Interview

Last year, we first heard about Pentiment, Obsidian Entertainment’s narrative Disco Elysium-inspired RPG headlined by Josh Sawyer. And now, we’re finally treated to an official announcement trailer for this project notable for its use of medieval art styles. Check it out:

Set in 16th century Bavaria, Pentiment will take players on a narrative journey through the eyes of Journeyman Artist Andreas Maler during a time of great social unrest. Led by game director Josh Sawyer, this game is brought to life by a talented team inspired by illuminated manuscripts, woodcut prints, and history itself.

Pentiment will release this fall on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Windows 10/11, and Steam for $19.99. It will also be available as a day one release with an active Xbox Game Pass, PC Game Pass subscription.

Then, you might be interested in this IGN interview with Josh Sawyer where he talks about how the game came to be and what we can expect from it. A couple of sample paragraphs:

“One of the key things in the game is that we do not ever definitively tell you, canonically, [who] the murderer [is],” Sawyer explains. “You have to investigate, find as much evidence as you can. You make your decisions based on whatever you think is most important. You are basically deciding who’s going to pay for the crime. That can be the person that you think actually did it. That can be the person that you think should be punished, whether or not they did it. Maybe it’s the person you like least. Maybe it’s the person you think that the community will miss the least.”

But the scenario Sawyer describes is just the beginning of Pentiment. In total it covers a span of about 25 years, during which multiple crimes, murders and conspiracies occur that Andreas gets roped into somehow or another. But despite the detective story bent of Sawyer’s explanation, he’s averse to calling Pentiment a detective game, because he says it’s light on detective game mechanics. It’s a narrative adventure, he says, with mystery and murder elements, and where choices have consequences. For instance, Andreas is an artist with a university education, but players can choose what he excelled at in school. That choice will dictate the kinds of conversations he’s able to have with others as he tries to find information about various crimes.