We tried Pentiment: Obsidian’s stunning narrative and exploration adventure

It came as a pleasant surprise to many in the middle of the Xbox and Bethesda conference in June, but for a few insiders in reality, Josh Sawyer’s new project has been known for a while, at least briefly and for some general thoughts on the graphics. style and game mechanics. Finally during Gamescom 2022 Try PentimentObsidian’s new, great work, but even playing it thanks to a small demo on the show floor, was later deepened in a closed rendezvous that allowed us to deepen this title so strange but already so familiar.

Let’s go in order and start over: What is Repentance in Practice? Because it’s not easy to understand, but if we were to reduce ourselves to a synthetic description, we might consider it a narrative adventure with an exploratory air, an original and very different artistic style, almost a kind of ideal hybrid with Disco Elysium. inculinati Even if the game seems to lack such a prominent role-playing component in Pentiment, it is much closer to the first title mentioned, from the turn-based strategic lag that focuses on combat, the style similarities are easily discernible. But that’s all.

History

The decor and artistic component of Pentiment are bidirectionally linked, as can easily be seen from a handful of images or announcement trailers:Upper Bavaria of the 16th centuryIn the middle of the Middle Ages and at our command will be Andreas Maler, a small craftsman who chose to become an artist after leaving his great education halfway, but who, despite himself, found himself precisely because of his talents. a painter and scholar to become a genre researcher of the time.

A profession that practically does not exist in this precise historical context, but it will lead Andreas to initially do a virtue of necessity in order to acquit a dear friend and also his mentor, but later on there will be a real reason for it. living in a long narrative arc to occupy 25 years of the heroIt is clearly timed by a series of tragic events that will chase him and increasingly involve him in a conspiracy that almost seems to presume the existence of a serial killer.

To begin the interactive story, a well-known prince will be killed in a Benedictine monastery in Bavaria, and Brother Piero will be caught “with his hands in the bag”, folded over the victim’s body and holding a knife. victim’s body. Obviously, not everything is as it seems, and our mission will be to track down the real killer, exonerate our friend, and shine a light on the murder. Or maybe not quite.

Freedom of choice, what’s real

The main feature of Pentiment is actually a freedom of choice It is completely placed in the hands of the player who will not have to evaluate which characters to interrogate, what research activities to undertake, and how to spend the time before the final decision, and will be able to do so, but also has to and can. deliberately or unfortunately accusing any of the NPCs involved in the case, then bearing the consequences of that decision. Even in the epilogue, which should be very varied on the one hand, and encourage the player to re-face the adventure by making other decisions, on the other hand, the results that will resonate with the rest of the story analyze each case in a different way. way and then blaming different people, perhaps the ultimate goal is to find the real culprit.

Getting into details demo Proven, the session was set up practically at the beginning of the game, we assume a few minutes after the narration and tutorial. Initial contact with the game involved answering a handful of questions designed to describe Andreas’ “attitude” with respect to some choices about his past as a schoolboy. The first 2 were about skills gained through studies: options included oratory, logic, astronomy, occultism, or the possibility of having a background as a Latinist or botanist.

We were then asked to choose master way alternatively, theology was interrupted by imperial law and medicine. Finally, the place Andreas chose during his apprenticeship and the lifestyle he adopted during his nomadic period intervened to complete this type of character creation. These elements contribute both to describing how Andreas approaches the world of Repentance and, more concretely, to describing a range of options available to us during dialogues and environmental analysis that are clearly tied to our innate abilities. A little about the style of what has been tried in more classic and narrative RPGs.

Once this phase of creating our avatar was complete, we had a set of goals in the village where the crime was committed. Andreas, various”maps“rich in detail and beautifully animated.

Near some elements of the landscape or houses, we will have the opportunity to observe the area or enter the building. In the latter case, after a short loading, we will find ourselves with a much closer look inside the structure, we are always free to move around in search of items to interact with. The latter is indicated by a small overlay, which eliminates the need to carefully look around: all interaction points are clearly visible and easy to reach. The same is true for the large number of non-player characters that can be encountered in various settings, all split between them by small loadouts. One timeInteraction with NPCThe game gets into the most “exploratory” part, because we will always have to choose with great care how to continue the dialogue, making the most of our “skills” and possibly deepening the moments where Andreas immerses himself in reflective ideas. the interlocutor and said what he wanted (or did not want) to hear.

day-night cycle

As far as we can experience, these dialogues, or at least these more complex interactions, are necessarily a day-night cycle This serves to continue Andreas’ investigation by creating a sad but exciting pity associated with our freedom of choice. Visit a widow and try to find the reasons behind her hatred for the church and investigate the hypothesis that maybe she killed the prince, or go to the convent to attend the autopsy of the victim? We will have time and opportunity to do only one of these two activities, for when the first one is completed it will be evening and we will have to do the other chores, and perhaps the next day the body will no longer exist. or the old lady won’t be interested in venting her hatred now that we can’t help her with the housework. In Pentiment, everything is interconnected, and each of our decisions will involve the compulsion to miss something along the way and only be able to deepen certain aspects of the narrative arc.

Among other things, don’t think that Obsidian’s work is just a walking simulator disguised as a narrative adventure because the interactions seem too much and weren’t lacking in the demo either. more interactive sequences For example, the stage of harvesting the timber by “cutting” it to make the timber the ideal length, or creating a “hand” sketch of the slain prince’s wounds, which is necessary to get an idea of ​​the weapon. beat him to death. Pentiment is full of on-topic tweens and little goodies that really got us excited during our testing. there is even one high risk card game Who was the hero of the second part of the demo? A type of teresia that encounters the broomstick won by the player with the same card knocked down by the dealer. Who knows, a mini-game that will accompany us throughout Andreas’s told life, or perhaps stay connected to a particular moment of the adventure.

amazing to see

until nowartistic element it has been hollowed out everywhere in recent months: this particular use of a stroke and drawing was strongly inspired by the miniatures typical of medieval books written and drawn by writers and medieval xylographers. But during rehearsal, we noticed another little gem from the gorgeous couple of Obsidian’s imposing pedigree designer Josh Sawyer and art director Hannah Kennedy, which helps highlight just how born the piece was. We owe all the charisma of the game, it is truly an act of love towards the medium.

All dialogues appear as balloons written in feathers and liquid ink, and are usually grammatical errors Incorrect letters are easily corrected by an invisible hand, ready to erase and rewrite, even small traces of ink “smear” on the paper. Again: this is an absolutely useless ornament for gameplay purposes, but it can make it clear that the artistic choice at the core of Pentiment not only serves to cleverly disguise a low-budget production, but is an integral part of it. The idea that gives life to a project we can’t wait to play. And the game launches November 15 for PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series X | It won’t be long to wait as it reaches S. It’s clearly on Game Pass at launch.