Pentiment Review and Why Its Slow Murder Mystery Pays Off

Pentiment asks you to accuse someone of murder after a few days of investigation, and then it never tells you if you were right. I finished my first playthrough in about 17 hours and spent the next two days arguing with a friend about who really killed the baron. That argument is the point.

This Pentiment review covers what Obsidian's 2022 narrative adventure does brilliantly, where its slow pace will lose some players, and who should play it. Directed by Josh Sawyer and set in a fictional Bavarian valley in the 1500s, it is a murder mystery with no combat, no puzzles in the usual sense and a lot of conversations over bread and soup. It is also one of the most confident story games of its decade.

What Pentiment Is About

You play Andreas Maler, a journeyman artist finishing his masterpiece in the scriptorium of Kiersau Abbey, above the town of Tassing. When a visiting baron is murdered and an elderly monk Andreas cares about is blamed, he starts asking questions. The trial date is fixed, and you have only a handful of days to gather evidence before you must name a culprit.

The story runs across three acts and many years. Without spoiling anything, later acts jump forward in time and show how the town lives with the choices made earlier. That structure turns a single whodunnit into something closer to a history of one community.

The Art and the Fonts Tell Half the Story

Pentiment looks like an illuminated manuscript come to life. Characters are drawn in flat, inked lines, the backgrounds read like woodcuts, and the camera slides across scenes like a page being turned.

The cleverest detail is the text itself. Every character speaks in a typeface that matches their education and background. Monks speak in elaborate blackletter script. Townsfolk get plainer handwriting. One family linked to the new printing trade speaks in printed type that stamps onto the speech bubble. Occasionally a speaker's words appear with a misspelling that gets scratched out and corrected, as if a scribe is writing as they talk.

This is not decoration. Within an hour you can tell a person's social standing before reading a word, and when someone's lettering changes later in the game, it says something about how their life has changed.

How the Investigation Works

Each day is split into blocks of time, roughly morning, afternoon and evening. Talking to someone, searching a room or travelling across the valley uses up a block. You will never have time to follow every lead.

Before the game starts, you choose parts of Andreas's background, such as where he studied and what interests him. Those choices open up extra dialogue options, so a player who picked theology will notice details a player who picked medicine will miss. It is a simple system, but it makes the investigation feel personal.

Why the Missing Answer Works

A common complaint about Pentiment is that it refuses to reveal the true killer, and some reviews call that a cop out. I disagree. The game is not testing if you can solve a puzzle. It is asking what you are willing to do with incomplete information, which is the position real people were in at that time and, frankly, still are.

Every suspect has a motive, and the evidence you collect can point several ways depending on which leads you chased. When you make an accusation, the town reacts, and the consequences land on real people you have shared meals with. That weight lands harder than any solution screen could. If you want a mystery with one correct answer you can prove, Return of the Obra Dinn scratches that itch perfectly. Pentiment is a different kind of detective game, and it knows it.

The Pacing Problem

Pentiment is slow, and that will put some players off. Walking from one end of the valley to the other takes a while, and the middle act in particular has stretches where you are mainly moving between conversations. There is no fast travel in the usual sense.

The writing carries most of those stretches, but not all. A few conversations repeat information you already have, and on my second playthrough I noticed how much time I spent walking. If you play in short sessions of an hour or so, it feels much more comfortable than marathon play. It also helps to keep a few notes on paper: who claimed to be where on the night of the murder, and who contradicted whom. The game keeps a journal, but writing clues down yourself makes the final accusation feel earned.

What it does not have

• No combat or action sequences.
• No inventory puzzles beyond a few small tasks.
• No full voice acting. Every line is read as text, which suits the manuscript style but asks a lot of patience.

Who Should Play Pentiment

Play it if you enjoy reading, history and characters with mixed motives. Fans of Disco Elysium will feel at home with the dense dialogue, though Pentiment is gentler and shorter. It also suits players who want a story game they can finish in two or three weekends.

Skip it, or at least wait for a sale, if you need moment to moment action or dislike games that leave questions open. Pentiment launched on Xbox and PC in November 2022, came to PlayStation and Switch later, and it often appears at a discount. A full playthrough takes most players around 15 to 20 hours, and a second run with different background choices adds real value.

FAQ

Do you need to know medieval history to enjoy Pentiment?

No. The game includes a built in glossary that explains terms, people and places when you hover over highlighted words. A little curiosity is enough, and many players come away wanting to read more about the period.

Can you get a bad ending in Pentiment?

There is no traditional bad ending. Different accusations lead to different consequences for the town and characters, but the game treats every outcome as part of the story rather than as a failure state.

Is Pentiment worth replaying?

Yes, especially if you change Andreas's background and follow different leads. Many scenes and dialogue options only appear with certain choices, and a second run often changes how you read the whole mystery.

The Verdict

Pentiment is a beautifully made, thoughtful murder mystery that trusts you to live with uncertainty. Its slow middle and text heavy style will not suit everyone, but if you like stories about people more than puzzles, it is one of the most rewarding narrative games you can play. Give it two hours: if the typefaces and dinner table gossip have hooked you by then, the rest will too. For more picks like this, browse our other game reviews.