Noclip made a documentary about Pentiment:

The Making of Pentiment - Noclip Documentary

Toucharcade interviewed Josh Sawyer one year after the release of Pentiment:

Pentiment Anniversary Interview: Josh Sawyer on His Influences, Going From Playing D&D to Designing, a Potential Pillars of Eternity 3, RPG Mechanics, and More

I loved Obsidian Entertainment’s Pentiment last year, and with its upcoming anniversary, I figured it was a great time to chat with Josh Sawyer (Studio Design Director at Obsidian) about the game, RPG mechanics, his career, the games he is playing now, and a lot more including a few non-gaming topics. This is one of the longer interviews we’ve done. Usually, I’d want to split a feature like this into two parts, but I’m sure fans of Josh Sawyer’s work like reading a lot anyway. This interview was conducted on a video call. It was then transcribed and edited for brevity in the case of some portions.

TouchArcade (TA): For those who don’t know you, tell us a little bit about yourself, and your current position at Obsidian Entertainment.

Josh Sawyer (JS): My name is Josh Sawyer. I started in the video game industry in 1999 at Black Isle Studios. I originally started as a website designer. The first game I worked on was Planescape Torment, designing the website for that, and then Icewind Dale and Baldur’s Gate 2.

I then became a designer on Icewind Dale, and I worked at Black Isle until it closed or just before it closed. I then went to Midway for a couple of years that didn’t really work out. Then I went to Obsidian. In 2005, I worked on Neverwinter Nights 2, and then after that I directed Fallout: New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2, and Pentiment. I’ve been the studio design director at the studio for five years.

[...]

TA: I’m glad you mentioned that, because I was gonna ask what you thought about Baldur’s Gate 3. I’m slowly playing through it. I know you are as well. I think you mentioned how Baldur’s Gate 3 ended the real time with pause versus turn based debate. I also wanted to know what you specifically would like to do in your own game if you didn’t have to worry about what the audience wanted.

JS: I’m still concerned about what the audience wants, but I prefer turn based as well. I just think it’s easier to design more intricate combats. I like games with a lot of stats, obviously. (he laughs). But the problem with real time with pause is that it’s honestly very difficult for people to to actually parse all of that information and one of the things I’ve heard a lot from people who’ve played Deadfire in turn based, is that there were things about the game like the affliction and inspiration system that they didn’t really understand very clearly until they played it in turn based. Other mechanics like penetration, they didn’t fully understand until they played it in turn based. So I’m not saying that all those systems are perfect, but I do think like I like doing more crunchy stuff with systems, and that is it’s just easier to make that stuff clear and work in a turn based setting.

So I would do something like that, I’ve said before the camera in BG3 which is essentially the Divinity Original Sin 2 camera. I don’t prefer that because I like designing for a specific perspective.

I think you could do that with a scripted camera in 3D. I think that would be super cool. You can do that and it can work and be a lot of fun and. I think that’s that’s the thing. For me, most of the problems I have with BG3 have to do with the interface. It has to do with the camera or the interface and how you manage abilities and click on things and some of that stuff is kind of a headache to me to be honest. I really, at least for Pillars and Deadfire, I tried to keep the interface, given that it’s a very complicated game, I tried to make it as simple to interact with as possible, and I think we did a pretty good job on it, so that would continue to be my focus.

Any time I’m gonna make a game where I know that there’s a lot of complexity in it, I want the complexity to be not in interacting with the interface, but in the mental part of it, not the physical part of it.

[...]

Thanks Couchpotato!

Forgottenlor reviewed the historical adventure Pentiment.

Link to article

PCMag checked out Pentiment:

Pentiment

A magical murder mystery

2022 was an especially rough year for Microsoft's game development efforts. Although Xbox Game Studios failed to launch a single product, Microsoft-owned Obsidian Entertainment released Pentiment ($19.99), one of the most memorable adventure games in recent years. The historical whodunit lacks action, but makes up for it with a unique art style, meaningful decision-making system, and simple RPG elements. As a result, the excellent Xbox Series S/X game (also available on Xbox Game Pass and Steam) earns our Editors' Choice award for adventure games.

[...]

The Details Are in the Story
Pentiment styles itself as a murder mystery. You question people, gather evidence, investigate hunches, and blame someone for the crime. However, the game only sort of cares about the truth. No matter who you peg as the killer, there are no definitive answers. Instead, you must live with the consequences of your actions.

The game cares more about stories and our perception of truth. Tassing is a town with a long, winding history. It was founded by Romans, settled by Pagans, and is currently populated by Christians. The passage of time makes the truth hard to discern, and over the game's three acts, you see how the truth changes depending on your perception. What Pentiment lacks in exciting gameplay mechanics, it makes up with meticulously crafted branching dialog options.

Though the game's third act suffers from some uneven story and pacing decisions, Pentiment ultimately sticks the landing for a truly rewarding story. In the end, it's entirely up to you—both literally and figuratively—to determine how the past is remembered and the future is written.

Bottom Line
Pentiment is a thrilling, Renaissance-style whodunit that forgoes conventional video game action by focusing on an engaging narrative, branching dialogue options, and character relationships.

Score: 4.5/5

Gamebanshee checked out Pentiment:

Pentiment Review

There's a good chance you know Obsidian Entertainment's Josh Sawyer as the lead designer on Fallout: New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity. But if you've been following the man's career, you might also know him as a bit of a history buff.

As such, it's no surprise that following Microsoft's acquisition of Obsidian, which resulted in greater freedom to experiment with more unorthodox projects, he jumped on the opportunity to direct a very much historical title in Pentiment.

The game itself is described as a narrative-driven adventure focusing on character development, heavily stylized art, and choice-driven storytelling in early 16th-century Bavaria. And with it being the latest Josh Sawyer production, we simply had to check it out.

[...]

Conclusion

With its stylish presentation, tight and competently told story, and numerous advancements in the realm of video game dialogue, you would be remiss not to play Pentiment purely on account of it lacking the usual trappings of an RPG.

If you like historical settings, murder mysteries, and touching personal stories, then Pentiment is definitely a game for you regardless of how you want to classify it.

Destructoid points out why Pentiment is a good thing for the whole game industry:

Pentiment is the breath of fresh air that games desperately needed

The following contains mild spoilers for Pentiment. If you haven’t played it yet, go do that right now! Then come back and see us.

Obsidian is in peak form, if you ask me
We’re already looking ahead to an amazing year of releases in 2023, but part of me still can’t let go of one of my favorite games of last year: Pentiment. Although it was released mid November of 2022, I didn’t play it until a month later when we were in the midst of the end of year rush, so I didn’t get to give it as much attention as I thought it deserved. So here I am, taking a moment to highlight not only what a great game I think Pentiment is, but also my thoughts on how this game’s mere existence, along with its subsequent success, is actually a good thing for the games industry as a whole. Let’s get into it.

In today’s market, singularity is everything
Say what you want about Pentiment, but there is one thing you can’t deny: the game is entirely singular in the games industry. From its art style to its setting to its story to its gameplay, there’s nothing I can point to and say “eh, they did it first” or “they did it better.” I’ll start with the art. A key characteristic of the game’s protagonist, Andreas, is that he’s an artist. It would have already been a brilliant decision to go for a style that accurately recreates the art style of the period that the main character is actively creating in the game, but the fact that it ties back into the narrative so seamlessly as a storybook recounting the history of the town of Tassing — it’s near perfection if you ask me.

[...]

Obsidian Entertainment has updated Pentiment, fixing a number of annoying issues:

1.1 Patch Notes

We are happy to let you all know that patch 1.1 for Pentiment is now available to download. This patch includes the following:

• Endris has a new minigame that can be found at the beginning of Act 1
• Logic issue with the Final Day of Law and Judgment has been fixed to prevent people from being condemned if they were never accused
• Telling Father Gernot your evidence against a character in Act II will no longer automatically prevent you from speaking with that character in the future. There is now a Persuade check in place that can allow the conversation to continue.
• Credits have been adjusted and updated to contain various additions and fixes
• Parallax has been added to the meadow
• Credits speed can now be adjusted, speeding up, slowing down, pausing, or reversing
• You can now skip the intro
• Created hybrid input option that keeps mouse active when using keyboard and mouse
• Added an instant dialogue display option
• Fixed bugs with the input mapper
• Various Bug Fixes and Improvements

Heads-up from Redglyph: there were several reports of the game being stuck in a "Loading..." loop when launching the game, right after updating. This procedure solves the problem:

1. disable Steam Cloud for this game (right-click on the game, properties, "Keep games saves in the Steam Cloud for Pentiment")
2. delete this file, or move it to a safe backup place:
   %USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\Obsidian Entertainment\Pentiment\CloudSync\InputMapGameplay.dat
3. launch the game
4. quit the game
5. enable Steam Cloud again

Mild Conviction checked out Pentiment:

Pentiment Review – Truly Illuminated

Mortismal Gaming reviewed Pentiment:

Pentiment - Review After 100%

Maddmike checked out Pentiment:

Pentiment Review

RPG Site reviewed Pentiment:

Pentiment Review

When Pentiment was first unveiled this last summer, it admittedly took me a bit of time to acclimate to Obsidian Entertainment's newest role-playing project. A narrative-focused murder mystery set in 16th-century Bavaria with an artstyle inspired by that era was not something I would have expected to be inherently excited about -- especially considering the underused setting that I was not at all well-versed in. The earliest footage showed some well-worn elements present in many games revolving around making dialogue choices and collecting evidence, but so much else felt very foreign to me.

Consequently, I originally had no truly concrete expectations going into Pentiment, and I dove in effectively flying blind. What I ended up finding was a thematically striking and ultimately optimistic story that I immediately wanted to share my experience with all of my peers whether they had this game on their radar or not.

[...]

By the time I finished my first playthrough of Pentiment I knew that the experience was one that would fondly stick with me for a long time. Pentiment is an easy game to recommend in the same way that one recommends a favorite documentary to a new friend or a local museum to an out-of-town visitor. Pentiment carries a sort of quiet confidence in which the passion of its creators towards the subject material of the game's setting, art, and theme truly carries through to the final exceptional experience.

Score: 9/10

Mortismal Gaming checked out Pentiment:

Pentiment - First Impressions

PC Gamer reviewed Pentiment:

Pentiment review

A brilliant murder mystery that understands class, community, and the march of history. 

There’s blood on the walls of Kiersau Abbey. Beneath a long mural of the Danse Macabre (opens in new tab) lies a jewel-festooned corpse: A visiting nobleman has been murdered behind the monastery’s doors, shattering years of monastic peace and jeopardising the surrounding village of Tassing, Bavaria. 

It’s 1518 and Europe is teetering over an ocean of blood: Martin Luther is threatening a thousand years of papal dominance of western Christianity, Tassing’s peasants chafe loudly under onerous taxes, and the rich and powerful are—as ever—guarding their riches and power with rough men ready to do violence on their behalf. If there’s ever a good time to find a dead aristocrat splayed across the floor of your monastery, this isn’t it. To make matters worse, the most convenient culprit for the powers-that-be to pin the whole mess on is the person that found the body: Your friend and mentor.

[...]

Layer Upon Layer

Pentiment is a rare beast: A relatively short, gameplay-light narrative adventure from a studio renowned for its lengthy, mechanics-heavy RPGs. Even stranger, the team pulled it off with aplomb. Yes, there are some mechanical quibbles, and it did take some coaxing to get me to accept the central mystery’s final resolution, but Obsidian’s tight grasp on its subject matter and thorough understanding of exactly what it wanted to do with Pentiment has produced a game that I wanted to launch again just as soon as I finished it. I want to see what happens when I pick a different constellation of background traits, pursue different leads, and pass the persuasion checks I failed (and fail the ones I passed).

At 20 hours, Pentiment is a short game compared to some of the hundred-hour titans we've seen this year, but it's a game I see myself replaying a lot in the years to come. I get the feeling that I'll need to spend a lot more time in Tassing before I even scratch the surface.

Score: 88/100 - A beautiful and beautifully-written narrative game that makes masterful use of its early modern setting. One of Obsidian's finest.

Thanks Henriquejr!

The historical adventure Pentiment has been released:

Pentiment

From Obsidian, this game is a historical narrative-driven game focusing on character development, heavily stylized art, and choice-driven storytelling in early 16th century Bavaria. Players will play as Andreas Maler, a clever illustrator caught up in a series of murders in Tassing and Kiersau Abbey over the course of twenty five years. Players will be responsible for conducting their own investigation to decide the fate of the community, but each decision will have lasting consequences and inexorably draws Andreas closer to the center of an underlying conspiracy.

Illustrated world
Experience 16th century Europe as the master artists of the time saw them. Art inspired by great illuminated manuscripts and the earliest printed books becomes a living, breathing world in Pentiment.

Uncover mysteries
Choose different academic and social backgrounds and meet a colorful cast of characters as you discover the stories and secrets that lie within the small Bavarian town of Tassing and nearby Keirsau Abbey.

Impact a changing world
In an era of great religious and political change, each decision you make can have a profound impact on the community’s future. Find your own way through this turbulent time and see the consequences of your choices play out over generations.

IGN reviewed the upcoming Pentiment:

Pentiment Review

"As an engrossing 15 to 20-hour adventure game, a chronicle of a small town and its people in turbulent times, a reverent celebration of the finer details of Late Medieval history, and a clever detective story in which straight answers are hard to come by – Pentiment is a clear champion. My gripes about it are all relatively minor, and I look forward to playing it at least once or twice more to explore roads not taken. It never suffers for its simplicity, lacking in combat or traditional puzzles, because of how effectively it tangled me up in the complexities of its gorgeously-realized world and made me want to learn all I could about its people and its past. There isn't much more to say about Pentiment, other than I can hardly recommend it highly enough."

Redglyph that the Adventure-RPG Pentiment will release on November 15:

Pentiment Releasing on November 15

Obsidian Entertainment and the team behind Pentiment are very happy to announce the game will be launching on November 15 for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows 10/11 PC, Steam, and with Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass. Pre-orders for the game are open today as well as pre-installs being available with Game Pass.

Senior Design Director Josh Sawyer and Art Director Hannah Kennedy give you an overview over Pentiment:

Pentiment - Official Developer Overview

Obsidian's Senior Design Director Josh Sawyer and Art Director Hannah Kennedy give you a behind-the-scenes look at what to expect in the evolving world of their 16th-century narrative RPG, Pentiment.

Obsidian Entertainment announced the Adventure RPG Pentiment:

Obsidian Entertainment Announces Pentiment

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This is Obsidian’s third year being a part of the Summer Showcase, and for the third year in a row, we are announcing a new game. Today, we have the pleasure of introducing the world to Pentiment, a 16th-century narrative adventure game directed by Studio Design Director Josh Sawyer. As you will see, this game is brought to life by a talented team who were inspired by illuminated manuscripts, woodcut prints, and history itself.

In Pentiment, you play Andreas Maler, a journeyman artist working in the bygone scriptorium of Kiersau Abbey during a time of great social unrest. While finishing his masterpiece, Andreas inadvertently becomes entangled in a series of murders that take place over 25 years. Peasants, thieves, craftsmen, monks, nuns, nobles, and even saints must be investigated and interrogated to expose the truth. 

It will be up to players to decide Andreas’ choices, from his educational background and lifestyle to how he investigates the murders. One day he may be digging up a dead monk in the abbey cemetery, the next might be spent eavesdropping on peasant gossip at the ladies’ spinning bee. Every decision and accusation he makes carries consequences that will impact the tightly-knit Alpine community for generations to come.

We are very excited to share this unique interpretation of life in 16th-century Germany, and we can’t wait to release more information with you about Pentiment leading up to its launch this November.

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