The creators of Fallout: New Vegas and The Outer Worlds present a very different kind of medieval themed role-playing game.
Tolkien has inspired so much in the world of role-playing games, but it doesn’t always have to be about elves and dragons. There are plenty of role-playing titles that eschew those somewhat predictable trappings, from the post-apocalyptic detritus of the Fallout series to Golf Story, which splices role-playing elements with Donald Trump’s favourite sport. Role-playing games are a lot more varied than their reputation sometimes suggests, but until now there’s been nothing quite like Pentiment.
Set during the 16th century in Tassing, a fictional Alpine village, you play Andreas, a visiting artist working at the abbey’s scriptorium, where books, religious texts, and illuminated manuscripts are diligently copied by hand. While there is a newly founded printer in town, the work of writing and illustrating is still mostly done by hand in the time-honoured way, by men of deep religious conviction.
Presented as if it were part of an ancient book, Pentiment’s characters are animated versions of their ink-and-paint counterparts, and when they talk, you can see and hear the pen scratches of the person lettering the text, complete with mistakes that are hastily rubbed out and corrected. Fancier characters speak in more elaborate script, while the peasants talk in relatively plain handwriting. There’s no voice acting, but with so much character in the text you never feel the lack of it.
The menus unfold like pages in a notebook; your journal, map, and dramatis personae inking themselves in as you progress through the story, which is also unusual in that it takes place across multiple generations. Starting in the early 1500s, and ending in 1544, you get to experience the changing life of the village and see the long term effects of the ructions you’re very much a part of. All of which starts with a murder.