Obsidian’s new adventure Pentiment is a romp through medieval manuscripts
The RPG masters make a calligraphic diversion this November
Were you hoping to hear something about Avowed or The Outer Worlds 2 tonight? Well, Obsidian have announced manuscriptacular medieval murder-mystery adventure Pentiment at today’s Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase instead. This one at least has a firm-ish release date of November attached, though, and looks very pretty. Catch yourself up with the reveal by watching the trailer below.
Pentiment is being headed up by Obsidian’s studio design director Josh Sawyer, and it puts you into the clogs of 16th-century journeyman artist Andreas Maler. Andreas works on illuminated manuscripts at a German abbey – hence the game's visual style – but he ends up becoming tangled up in 25 years’ worth of murders, say Obsidian. You’ll have to help Andreas chat up everyone from saints, nobles and nuns down to lowly peasants and thieves to crack the mystery wide open. There’s consequences to Andreas’ actions though, and these resonate down the years.
Obsidian revealed they’re working on first-person Pillars Of Eternity spin-off Avowed at 2020’s Xbox not-E3 stream, and sci-fi RPG sequel The Outer Worlds 2 this time last year. We didn’t get to see anything more of those work-in-progresses, but Obsidian did acknowledge at today’s event that they’re still cracking on with them despite announcing a new game for three years in a row. They’ve promised to show them at “a later date”. Roll on 2023, then?
Pentiment releases in November and it’s coming to Steam for £16/$20/€20, as well as the Microsoft Store and Xbox consoles. It’s a day one release on Game Pass for PC too.
Not E3 2022 is in full-swing - see everything in our E3 2022 hub, as well as our complete round-up of everything announced at Summer Game Fest 2022. Many more big game showcases and streams are still to come this summer, so make sure you stay up to date with our summer games stream schedule.