Pentiment opens in 1518 with a baron face-down and a town ready to hang the wrong man. Obsidian Entertainment built a murder mystery out of that moment, then stretched it across 25 years in the fictional Alpine town of Tassing. The game shipped for Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on November 15, 2022. The Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 versions followed on February 22, 2024.
Trailer, via XBOX.
Andreas Maler and the Kiersau Abbey Scriptorium
You play Andreas Maler, a journeyman painter from Nuremberg serving an apprenticeship as an illuminator at Kiersau Abbey. Baron Lorenz Rothvogel, a longtime benefactor, arrives to check on a manuscript he commissioned. He dislikes the work of the elderly Brother Piero and demands Andreas finish the remaining illustrations. The next day the baron is found stabbed to death.
Abbot Gernot blames Piero to protect Kiersau’s reputation and has him detained. Andreas thinks Piero is innocent and starts his own investigation. He finds several townspeople had reason to kill the baron, and each got a mysterious note pushing them toward violence. Andreas brings the evidence to the archdeacon. One suspect is executed.
The Twelve Articles and the Second Murder
Seven years later, Andreas returns to find Tassing near revolt over the abbot’s heavy taxation, stirred by the Twelve Articles. The rebellion’s leader, Otto Zimmermann, turns up dead. The townspeople blame the abbot and threaten to storm the abbey. Andreas investigates again and finds the same kind of notes, this time aimed at pushing people to kill Otto. He accuses a suspect, who flees to the mill and dies when the townspeople burn it down. The crowd then torches the abbey and its library. Andreas runs into the flames to save the books and is presumed dead. The Duke of Bavaria’s soldiers arrive and kill many townspeople.
Choosing Who Deserves Punishment
Pentiment plays from a 2D side view as a narrative adventure RPG. You gather physical proof and talk to townsfolk, then accuse someone based on who you think did it or who most deserves punishment. Dialogue trees let you define Andreas’ past — his travels, languages and academic background — and those choices shape how the mysteries resolve. Peasants, thieves, craftsmen, monks, nuns, nobles and saints all end up in the interrogation chair.
What the Accusation System Gets Right
The best idea in Pentiment is that guilt and justice are separate questions. The game hands you evidence, then asks what you want done with it. That is a sharper hook than most crime games manage, and it earns the 25-year span. The cost is that the murders can start to feel like a delivery system for the theme rather than the point.
A Peabody and a Slow Console Arrival
Pentiment won a Peabody Award in 2023 and drew positive reviews. The Switch, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 ports took until February 2024, more than a year after the Xbox and PC launch. That delay is the part worth watching — the game only reached PlayStation and Nintendo players long after its awards run.
Hard Numbers
- Release: November 15, 2022 (Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S)
- Later release: February 22, 2024 (Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5)
- Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
- Publisher: Xbox Game Studios
- Award: Peabody Award, 2023
- Score: 8.5/10
The Verdict on Pentiment
Pentiment trusts players to sit with an ugly choice, and that trust is rare. The art, the abbey, the notes — all of it serves a single question about who pays for a crime. The pacing sags between murders, and the accusation system can leave you wishing the game pushed harder on the consequences. Still, this is Obsidian doing something no one else attempted in 2022.
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