Game News Josh Sawyer's long-awaited historical RPG is called Pentiment, coming next year

[HoboForEternity]

Josh is Allright by me, i am pretty optimistic

 

[vortex]

I wonder if Obsidian will ever realize the only thing we all want from them is another Fallout in the vein of New Vegas?

You and maybe 10 people around here. Obsidian has to do its own thing. Stop living in the past.

Arcanum Spiritual Sucessor on a good TB-ISO engine would't hurt, either.

Yes. But why TB tho?

 

[Viata]

I wonder if Obsidian will ever realize the only thing we all want from them is another Fallout in the vein of New Vegas?

You and maybe 10 people around here. Obsidian has to do its own thing. Stop living in the past.

Nigga keeps asking Obsidian to release the same game + 1 and then goes on to complain that devs only release the same game + 1.

 

[Burning Bridges]

RPGCodex when they find out brown people existed before the 1950s

Japanese peasants actually did have surnames, they just weren't officially recorded in documents and were only used in private. When peasants were made (literally forced, for the sake of taxation and education,) to have surnames again in 1870 they generally just adopted the same private surnames they had for the past 200ish years anyway (the years where surnames were for the privileged and samurai only.) In official capacity they were identified by other things, such as the shop they own or the village they were from.

Japanese naming conventions have a long and complex and sparse history, and most of it is in Japanese. Suffice to say the millions of farmers in Japan were not all simply called "farmer." I presume that this misconception originates from the novel Shogun, but I'm not totally sure. Either way there were many historical documents where peasants had given names, such as this letter from 1461 http://hyakugo.kyoto.jp/contents/detail.php?id=25474 (page 3) or this farmland sales registry http://kameyamarekihaku.jp/sisi/siryou1/harake/079/079-12/gi_auto.html?pf=hayo07912-001.JPG&pn=田地売渡証文断簡 Totally different from samurai signatures which looked like this http://www2.harimaya.com/sengoku/html/busyo2/kasa_1557.jpg

Yes I probably read this from James Clavell and Stephen Turnbull. That's all we Westerners have because real Japanese have released no approachable literature about the subject. In fact I often see very interesting videos on Youtube (for example on motorsport) that I would love to see translated from Japanese, even if it was just subtitles.

And what you say makes sense. Most European names are actually also just a profession (miller, smith etc) while the first name is usually a character trait (eg strong or persevering for men, virtuous or graceful etc for qomen). Everyone had to have a name (even if it was just a nickname) but the right to have a "real" name was for the nobility.
The point being that the nobility were never called "dyer" "forester" or anything like that. I think I understand it now. If you heard the name of someone you immediately had to know if it was someone special.

 

[Viata]

That's all we Westerners have because real Japanese have released no approachable literature about the subject.

They have, you just need to learn their language and read those books.

 

[Roguey]

I wonder if Obsidian will ever realize the only thing we all want from them is another Fallout in the vein of New Vegas?

Skyrim-like game? NOBODY CARES.

Some game like Disco Elysium? Don't know don't care don't give a fuck.

Like, you nibbas all work for Microsoft now. Just show up on the higher ups' office and say "Sup, we want to work with the Fallout license again."

Dudes literally have THE CREATORS OF FALLOUT working for them. It doesn't get more cred than that. Just call everyone they can who worked with FNV (Gonzales is a must) and DO IT. It would be the most hype thing in whatever year it launches.

Then again, maybe they could make a decent engine for Avowed and use that later. A Fallout game in a non-dogshit engine would be awesome.

Spoiler

Arcanum Spiritual Sucessor on a good TB-ISO engine would't hurt, either. Imagine something like Arcanum with D:OS tier turn-based combat, I would legitimately masturbate to it.

The Fallout setting wouldn't make it any better than The Outer Worlds or the Outer Worlds 2. Those are the types of games they're capable of making now. Gonzalez is also responsible for Horizon Zero Dawn. There's no going back to 2010.

 

[Tim the Bore]

Codex gonna Codex but IMO it sounds pretty interesting. Definitely unusual premise. And making weird games that wouldn't sell was Obisidian at their best.

 

[undecaf]

I do hope they compensate for the expectable dry prose with varied, interesting and at least semi-inventive gameplay and character mechanics (yeah, right).

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I ain't paying to watch an old livestream (well old now that it isn't live).

 

[Lady Error]

What a shitty name for a game.

And medieval Disco Elysium clone? Meh. I guess it could turn out alright since Sawyer does care about history, but I have my doubts.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Nada yt content leaked as far as I can tell. Oh well.

 

[CrunchyHemorrhoids]

The Fallout setting wouldn't make it any better than The Outer Worlds or the Outer Worlds 2. Those are the types of games they're capable of making now. Gonzalez is also responsible for Horizon Zero Dawn. There's no going back to 2010.

Avellone and Gonzalez are out, others like Cain & Boyarsky are in. The point remains that for the next several years bethsoft will be busy working on Starfield and then TES6 (the latter perhaps a PS6-gen title), they won't have time for Fallout this generation and MS should be free to have a different studio make something of it. If you ever wanted another New Vegas "slam dunk" then the stars couldn't possibly get any more aligned than this.

Even if you believe nu-obsidian's potential fallout setting/writing/design would end up no better than anything else they now make, New Vegas 2 would still be in a whole other league of popularity/sales compared to Colorblind Worlds 2, let alone OW with swords in knockoffland. They'd be leaving money on the table.

 

[Quillon]

The Fallout setting wouldn't make it any better than The Outer Worlds or the Outer Worlds 2. Those are the types of games they're capable of making now. Gonzalez is also responsible for Horizon Zero Dawn. There's no going back to 2010.

Avellone and Gonzalez are out, others like Cain & Boyarsky are in. The point remains that for the next several years bethsoft will be busy working on Starfield and then TES6 (the latter perhaps a PS6-gen title), they won't have time for Fallout this generation and MS should be free to have a different studio make something of it. If you ever wanted another New Vegas "slam dunk" then the stars couldn't possibly get any more aligned than this.

Even if you believe nu-obsidian's potential fallout setting/writing/design would end up no better than anything else they now make, New Vegas 2 would still be in a whole other league of popularity/sales compared to Colorblind Worlds 2, not to mention compared to OW with swords in knockoffland. It would be leaving money on the table.

Obs looks even more busier than Beth with 2 supposedly AAA games + Grounded + this one. Tim Cain's suspected to have retired & no one knows about Leonard at this point(?), either way TOW proved no good will come from them anyway. MS should buy/create another studio for Fallout if they don't want the IP to sit on the shelf for another dacade. Or while Todd's busy maybe their paln is a sequel to Fallout 76 with whoever's responsible for that game atm, normies out there playing it apparently.

 

[turbo elephant]

I hope it has nuns, tits & dwarves: the cornerstone of any medieval(esque) entertainment product.

But, alas, I guess I can confidently post this:

 

[pickmeister]

Stop expecting bad developers with a bad (recent) track record to produce good games. Especially if you know they can't keep their wokeness out of their work. Or keep being disappointed again and again.

Literally all Obsidian needs to do is:

1. Get the rights (Microsoft owns Bethesda, Bethesda ins't making Fallout 5 anytime soon now, Bethesda and Microsoft like money)
2. Get the people
3. Get the money (Microsoft would likely thrown a fortune behind this)
4. Get the latest iteration of Bethesda's engine

Be an actually good studio.

 

[Alter Sack]

Oh boy, have I a bad feeling.

Can't wait to play a 'historical' middle ages rpg made by sjws.

I wouldn't be surprised if there will be some female/trans knights, evil templars/crusaders, noble Muslims and a good amount of homosexuality.

To top it of it will be filled to the brim with todays sjw moral 'values' which will be shoved down your throat while playing the game.

I'm willing to bet you that this game will not have women, non-Europeans or uncloseted LGBTQs in anachronistic roles. Sawyer is serious about his history and it overrides his politics.

Well, I am really tempted to take you on on your bet.

But my late grandpa (god bless him) always said that betting is only for Jews.

So I have to pass.

Well, time will tell who is right.

But I am pretty sure that some guys who ridicule me here, will make a very stupid face when the game is finally released (well, not Grauken because I suspect stupid is his default expression).

 

[Diggfinger]

OMG SO COOL!!!!

Setting totally makes sense given how Name of the Rose is Josh's favourite book.

Not excited about the dialogue havy/no combat part, but gess it was to be expected since he likes Disco Elysium.
Ill get it anyway, to support Josh







I recently revealed the game's name with my co-host Rand_Al_Thor_19 on our Xbox Two podcast. It's being called "Pentiment," which refers to "an underlying image in a painting, especially one that has become visible when the top layer of paint has turned transparent with age," according to the dictionary. This naming convention hints at the game's premise, by which you act as an investigator in 16th century Europe uncovering the truth behind a grisly murder.

Grubb mentioned that Pentiment takes cues from the likes of Disco Elysium and the branching narrative designs Josh Sawyer is known for. You'll be able to investigate and make accusations against the characters in-game, which could lead to cascading consequences if you're wrong. It'll be a dialogue-heavy game with decisions to make and response options to choose from, which will shape your experience as you unwrap the murder conspiracy before you.

I am told that Pentiment is being built by a small team of around 12 people, and is more of a narrative RPG adventure than something combat-oriented.

 

[vortex]

- Turn-Combat is more monocled
- Therefore, it has to be turn-based.
Also, Arcanum had so much diverse spells, weapons and concepts, that it would translate properly in a turn-based game.

If they wanted to, they would make TB combat in Pentiment. It's strange why Sawyer left it out. They already made it for Deadfire (it was extremely slow) and they could improve it here.

Also, for narrative I would like Elias Toufexis, Adam Jensen's voice actor, would be the lead in pentiment.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Considering how much Josh can talk about medieval weaponry and how much experience he has with designing combat systems, it is kinda disappointing that this will have no combat.

 

[aweigh]

No combat = not an RPG.

 

[Chippy]

Sawyer should have called it penitent. Then had MCA write the story and made the setting about crusader Christians kicking shit out of Muslims and just let someone else make the combat system. And I probably still wouldn't have bought it.

Yes this is edgy. But you get dragged down to that level when discussing anything Obsidian these days.

 

[Burning Bridges]

He should have called it penisment, and perhaps thats what he had in mind.

 

[RNGsus]

Prester John was King of Tartaria.

 

[HeroMarine]

Prester John was King of Tartaria.

Good ending:



Bad ending:

Spoiler

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

The game will be a punishment for those who try to play it. While the ingame history will be full of peniswomyn.