Pentiment: Release Date, Trailers, Gameplay, And More

Pentiment was one of the stranger and more niche games to come out of the Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase 2022. We'd heard rumours of the title for a while, but none of them quite forewarned of the showing that we got, with its medieval wood print art style and dialogue-heavy murder mystery plot.

In many ways, it's typical of Obsidian, while also being very different to many of its games that came before, which is likely down to the freedom that the acquisition by Microsoft brought. So if you're looking forward to Pentiment, here's a breakdown of everything we know about it, including the Pentiment release date, trailers, gameplay, and more.

Pentiment Release Date

Pentiment will be released on November 15, 2022. Players won't have to wait long until they can dive into the medieval mystery. 

Pentiment Trailers 

The only showing we've had so far was the reveal trailer that debuted at the Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase 2022. It began by zooming in on a book that contained the title, before some of the pages opened to reveal the gameplay, which boasts a unique art style based on medieval wood prints and engravings. 

It mostly showed off gameplay, giving players a look at some aspects of character creation, dialogue, and exploration, while also setting up the murder mystery plot that sits at the heart of the experience. 

Pentiment Gameplay

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Pentiment is a 2D historical role-playing game set in 16th Century Germany that is supposed to focus on character development and choice-driven storytelling. Essentially, you will play an artist plying their trade around Europe who comes to the Kiersau Abbey, and gets caught up in a murder mystery when your friend is accused of killing a local. 

It plays from a 2D perspective and allows you to explore the Abbey and local area to speak to different characters and interact with the environment in the hopes of finding clues. In an interview with IGN, director Josh Sawyer talks about the importance of letting players figure out the mystery themselves, stating, "one of the key things in the game is that we do not ever definitively tell you, canonically, who the murder is. You have to investigate, [and] find as much evidence as you can." This gives the player the freedom to completely butcher the investigation and accuse the wrong person by accident, or even set up a character that you don't like just to spite them. 

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Typical of Obsidian Entertainment, there are also plenty of RPG mechanics. While it seems that you cannot change the main character and their appearance, you are able to customise elements of their background, traits, and personality. For example, in the trailer we see Andreas taking to a character who asks where he spent Wanderjahr (a period of travel after finishing upper education in medieval times) and you can select from a few different options that affect your knowledge of different regions. Sawyer also shared some pictures of a similar situation where the player can pick from different background traits, such as hedonist, craftsman, rapscallion, bookworm, and more. This looks like it will give the game a lot of replayability in terms of how your interactions with different characters go.

Pentiment Platforms 

Pentiment is set to launch for the Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC platforms. It will also be accessible through Xbox Cloud streaming, and is available through Xbox Game Pass on day one.