Pentiment

Pentiment turns an investigation into a story about choices that reshape a Bavarian community over generations. At ≈ $3.14 from Kinguin, the current offer is at the site’s tracked low, making this a fitting moment to pick up its illustrated, choice-driven tale. Steam players rate it 95%% positive across 9,286 reviews. Full controller support and subtitles in 11 languages round out the Steam PC offer. With Simplified Chinese, English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese-Brazil, Japanese, Korean, and Russian interface languages and a release date of November 14, 2022, Pentiment offers a text-led historical mystery at ≈ $3.14.

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95%Steam Reviews9.3K reviews88Metacritic/10086OpenCritic/100

Released: Nov 14, 2022

Historical · Story Rich · Investigation · Adventure · Interactive Fiction

KinguinPentiment PC Steam CD Key (valid until March 2027)·Platform:·Checked 2026-10-09~~~ $22.40~~-86%from~ $3.14(~ €2.80)ALL-TIME LOWSave $16.85 vs SteamBuy now

EnebaPentiment Steam Key (PC) EUROPE·Platform:·Checked 2026-10-10-83%from~ $3.31ALL-TIME LOWBuy now

K4GPentiment Steam CD Key·Platform:·Checked 2026-10-10~~~ $22.39~~-84%from~ $3.54(~ €3.16)ALL-TIME LOWBuy now

CDKeysPentiment PC·Platform:·Checked 2026-10-10~~~ $19.82~~-81%from~ $3.69(~ €3.29)ALL-TIME LOWBuy now

Steam·Platform:·United States Steam official price~ $19.99Buy now

All-time low ~ $9.99across Steam & third-party storesat the recorded all-time low

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Price History

Past 36 months · Updated daily

Historical Low~ $3.362026-07Current Low Across Stores~ $9.99Kinguinvs. Historical Low+197%

Prices cover Steam and 39 authorized stores; only legitimate offers are counted. The chart shows weekly market-wide lows and Steam's official price across the past 36 months.

01About Pentiment

Pentiment is a historical narrative adventure set in 16th-century Bavaria. As illustrator Andreas Maler, investigate murders and scandals in Tassing and nearby Kiersau Abbey, choosing an academic and social background as you meet the town’s residents. Your decisions shape the community across generations. Steam players: 95%% positive from 9,286 reviews. Steam PC supports interface text and subtitles in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian, Korean, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese.

Credits

DIRECTOR

Josh Sawyer

American video game designer

NotablePillars of Eternity · Pentiment · Fallout: New Vegas

Developer

Obsidian Entertainment

Publisher

Xbox Game Studios

Steam player reviews

95%positiveOverwhelmingly Positive9,286 Steam reviews

Lowest recorded in 36 months

$3.362026-07-30 · KinguinBase game · same records as the chart above; USD history, not a regional Steam low.

Language support

Language	Interface	Subtitles	Audio
Simplified Chinese	Yes	Yes	—
English	Yes	Yes	—
French	Yes	Yes	—

Show 8 more languages

Language	Interface	Subtitles	Audio
Italian	Yes	Yes	—
German	Yes	Yes	—
Spanish	Yes	Yes	—
Polish	Yes	Yes	—
Portuguese-Brazil	Yes	Yes	—
Japanese	Yes	Yes	—
Korean	Yes	Yes	—
Russian	Yes	Yes	—

Steam PC edition data · 2026-10-10

02Before you buy

Text and audio

Steam PC lists subtitles in 11 languages, including English and Simplified Chinese. Full audio is not listed for these languages.

Controller

The Steam PC version has full controller support.

03Frequently asked questions

Where and when is Pentiment set?

The story unfolds in 16th-century Bavaria, in the town of Tassing and at nearby Kiersau Abbey.

Who does the player follow?

You follow Andreas Maler, an illustrator drawn into a series of murders, scandals, and intrigue.

Do choices affect the story?

Yes. Decisions affect the community, with consequences playing out over generations.

Popular Steam reviews

Native-language selection · 10 reviews

Selected helpful reviews in this language show both recommendations and criticisms. This selection does not represent the overall positive rating; opinions reflect the version reviewed.

RecommendedSteam player

11/18/2022

A long time ago, I got a master's degree in medieval literature. This is going to be a very niche review for a very niche game. My degree is basically unhelpful and I never use it, but I can say definitively, this game is extremely well-researched. Amazingly so. I think pretty early into the game, I realized I was in for an experience when my hedonist character name-dropped St Augustine expecting me, the player, to be like Ah, yes, haha! One thing that I love about medieval literature is the loss people endured at the time and the imagery people used to cope during this time period. While Pentiment is not strictly medieval (more the time period where late medieval slides into the Renaissance), a lot of the imagery is from late medieval works, including Beatrice, the dream vision guide coping with the loss of a child. Aside from the blow your mind fonts that are *also historically accurate,* I was really shocked to realize I was playing a choices matter game that was delving into the politics of literacy, Martin Luther, the advent of the printing press, and how this related to the Great Peasants' Revolt (or a mini version anyway). I did enjoy thinking about this message again, though, because it had been a while since I had thought about the importance of literacy, the control of access to knowledge and critical thinking. I realize this is far too thinky of a review on Steam, but this game is special and I think it deserves to be noted that this game reminds us that tens of thousands of people died for our ability to share books not only in the vernacular language, but in accessible fonts and in mass production. The danger was evident to the ruling class and you can see the control of information and access to education again today. Pentiment reminds us that a society where ruling groups control how education and freedom of certain rights are doled out to the other classes is a form of bondage that restricts upward mobility and change. It also reminds us of how many people died so that we could write stupid reviews like this. At least on my play-through, in the credits, it showed me of two characters who ended up being burned at the stake as heretics. While we do not have this danger nowadays, I hope it reminds us of the luxury we have of reading in the vernacular, and of having the right to move freely around the world no matter of our gender or race. This game also reminds us to consider how we should fight to keep these rights accessible to fight for better days.Show moreShow less

16.9 hours at review1,501 people found this helpful

Not recommendedSteam player

11/15/2022

Nice presentation... and intriguing premise... but too much blasphemy. Strange in a title where clearly a lot of historical research has been brought to bear there is an inexplicable tendency for characters to take the Lord's name in vain. Regrettable and sad. Refunded.Show moreShow less

0.7 hours at review102 people found this helpful

RecommendedSteam player

11/26/2022

As a medievalist (I wrote my PhD dissertation about a manuscript produced in the twelfth-century), I _really_ appreciate this game. The attention to detail is superb and I want to commend the development team for not falling prey to tiresome stereotypes about medieval life. Honestly, if I were still in the profession and teaching, I would include this on my syllabus for enrichment. :DShow moreShow less

26.3 hours at review699 people found this helpful

Not recommendedSteam player

11/21/2022

I wish I could recommend Pentiment. While the game's artstyle and setting are something refreshing, the writing and "choices matter" gameplay are not. Going into this game practically blind (having only read a few Steam reviews), I expected to get a deep, story-rich game where you could truly immerse yourself in a setting not often portrayed in games. Unfortunately, all I received was railroading, unexplained mechanics, misplaced minigames and the bitter feeling of my time being utterly wasted. After playing the first two acts, I felt disatisfied with the way my "choices" were being handled. There is always a sense of being rushed along due to time limits. Things that absolutely should have been dialogue options in key moments were completely lacking, most likely because an arbitrary checkpoint was not reached in a satisfactory manner. There is a system in place for persuasion, which the game only informs you of once one actually occurs. Up until that point, there is no indication that whatever is being "remembered" by characters will be used in a persuasion check. In hindsight, most of my time played was spent running around the town to see if any new dialogue popped up after having a conversation or receiving a semi-confession from someone. For a large majority of the time, absolutely nothing changed. There is no real way to shape your character, to make your choices have impact, or to feel like you've actually done something good for a change. After completing about a quarter of act 2, I just stopped talking to people that should've had something useful to say, because it became clear that I was being railroaded into a narrowing path that the writers carefully set out. After act 2 ended, I just didn't see any reason to continue playing the game at all. I tried to care about act 3, but I really just couldn't. As other reviewers have said; take away the artstyle and setting, and you just have a mediocre Telltale-like story.Show moreShow less

10.7 hours at review82 people found this helpful

Not recommendedSteam player

12/06/2023

Have you ever booked a hotel room after looking at the owner's pictures online, only to be utterly disappointed shortly after arrival, and subsequently wanting to leave after the first night? If not, then Pentiment offers you the same experience from the comfort of your own home - hooray! Now, I'm a sucker for medieval stuff - so a game set in medieval Southern Germany, the art style mimicking old medieval drawings from books? Of course I was excited - it sounded like some kind of clever detective novel, where you'd be collecting clues to solve a murder case by yourself, set in a charming world. Better still, things like the "mature content description" hinted at the fact that it wouldn't paint a naive picture of medieval life, instead portraying both its charm and its morbid sides. That, sadly, was the only hope of mine actually being fulfilled. As a German playing a game set in Germany, I, of course, opted for the German language option at first - it could've added so much immersion! .. At least had they engaged an actual translator instead of what felt like Google Translate used by someone who doesn't even speak German. This might've already been fixed in later updates, but while I played it, it was laughably bad. My favorite part was "Pet -name-" becoming "Haustier -name-", which describes "pet animal", not the act of "petting" something. Luckily, the brillant German education system my teenage years spent in the internet made switching to English no problem. After a quite lovingly crafted opening scene, the game thrusts you into its world as Andreas Maler, a young painter, spending some time in some cute village. Now, the first hour of the game, I really enjoyed. The art style, the sound design, the way in which you can kinda choose some of Malers traits yourself - I felt like a feasting medieval king, my plate full of only the best foods. Just walking around, relishing the way everything looks - the silly medieval-style drawings in the menu, the different fonts people talk in, the whole game looking like a medieval scroll come to life - I honestly had a blast! Some hours in though, things already began to grow.. dull. The gameplay can best be described as a walking simulator - one who's world you basically fully explore in the first two hours. Apart from some minor stuff, like you exploring a small cave deep into the game - this village and the abbey is everything you're going to see for the next 16 hours. That alone wouldn't be a problem - dialogue can fully carry an experience, just think of visual novels! The thing with Pentiment, though, is that you have to spend big chunks of time running around in the same old places - searching for the 1-2 people who'll tell you something new instead of repeating themselves. For a game relying so heavily on text, new optional interactions are just.. too hard to find, resulting in you slowly walking from known place to known place, always in fear of missing something, only to mostly hear the same old stuff you already read about. It's just a weird design choice - making a dialogue-driven game, then locking the dialogue one doesn't want to miss behind sluggish strolls through a never expanding, often rather empty world. Sometimes, you can make choices when talking to people. These, combined with some characteristics you can assign to Maler, mostly decide whether you succeed or fail in persuading someone to act the way you want them to. Now, maybe I might just be awful at convincing people - but on my first (and last) playthrough, I basically failed all of these so called "dialogue checks". Apparently, about 66% of fellow players did the same, as the "Art of persuasion" achievement (unlocking at 5 successfully done) rakes in at 33% completion as of now. Guessing there are about 20 of them, I feel like I've missed quite some stuff I would have liked to see! However, once they're failed - you failed them. Which isn't bad in and of itself, but it connects wonderfully to another problem. The games pacing is just too awfully slow to have any replayability. Pentiment seems to offer quite some different dialogue and events based on the choices you make. Again - I would love to experience these, but having to crawl through the same old town and every slow dialogue again - only to experience some minor changes just doesn't seem worth it. So that's the feeling the game left me with - after about 16 hours of gameplay which passed slower and slower, it's like I missed out on a lot of what the game has to offer - which is now locked behind a journey I wouldn't want to redo. Great! Whoever might have read this far might wonder - why didn't he yet mention the story? Well.. its because it basically left no impression on me. It wasn't awful or even bad, but I just wasn't engaged with it as much as a story-driven game would require for it to be more than "cool on paper" or "a nice concept". Crucify me or burn me as a witch - the games core story is mediocre at best, and loosely held together by the fluff the game offers look- and atmosphere wise. In the end, Pentiments lovely features - its unique setting, the art style, gimmicks like different fonts, the subtle yet pleasant sound design - just couldn't carry this game over the finish line. It might serve as a prime example that video games can and should be considered art - but a game being art and being enjoyable are two completely seperate things. To return to the metaphor of the king at the feast - after just one course, he reached satiation, blissfully unaware that 15 more courses were waiting to be savoured by him. Each one consisting of exactly the same foods as the first - but at least, differently arranged and neatly presented.Show moreShow less

15.5 hours at review72 people found this helpful

Source: original Steam user reviews. Helpful votes are an archived snapshot, not live data. Last collected: 08/15/2026.