Pentiment review – a 16th century mystery that blossoms with intrigue and human warmth
Pentiment sent me back to dig out my old copy of The Name of the Rose, and not merely because it’s another murder-mystery – of a kind – set in and around a medieval monastery. It’s mostly because there’s a lovely passage on pens early on in Umberto Eco’s book that I wanted to remind myself of.
Here it is, nestled in the fake introduction, which suggests that this careful clockwork novel you’re about to read is in fact a true story, a haphazard manuscript that has fallen into the hands of an academic, who has merely provided a translation:
Pentiment review
- Developer: Obsidian
- Publisher: Xbox Game Studios
- Platform: Played on Xbox Series X
- Availability: Out 15th November on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
“[In] almost a single burst of energy, I completed a translation, using some of those large notebooks from the Papetiere Joseph Gilbert in which it is so pleasant to write if you use a felt-tip pen.”
In a book with a lot of extravagant writing – the first page of the novel proper takes you from the gospel of John to St Paul’s letters in a single paragraph – there aren’t many obvious fireworks in that simple sentence. Yet there’s a lot to love, I think. There’s not just the obvious delight in the sheer sensation of writing, but there’s also the way the whole thing cuts through the book’s many layers and, in doing so, makes us aware of them. In a book of cleverness and concealments, this tiny riff on stationery feels like someone is actually speaking to us directly, unveiled. This is a rarity in the world we’re about to enter.
Pens and paper and layers of narrative, some of which cannot be trusted. This is Umberto Eco’s novel, and it’s also Pentiment, a “passion project” from Obsidian, made by a small team who are clearly in thrall to their subject. Pentiment, like The Name of the Rose, is a clever piece of storytelling that is also surprisingly easy to fall in love with. I fell for Pentiment over the course of a week, in fact: it lived with me as I played it, and it stayed with me once I’d put the controller down between sessions.
