Josh Sawyer: Pentiment Wouldn't Exist Without Game Pass - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 16 November 2022 / 2,431 Views
Obsidian Entertainment Studio Design Director Josh Sawyer speaking on Waypoint Radio said his latest game, Pentiment, would not exist if it wasn't for Xbox Game Pass.
He considers it a niche game and in the traditional gaming model it would have been hard to get a publisher to pick it up. However, Xbox Game Pass helps make the game viable.
"I never would have proposed making Pentiment without Game Pass," said Sawyer. "Like I literally just wouldn't have done it. I just don't think it would have been possible."
Pentiment is a 16th-century narrative adventure game and it released yesterday for the Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC via Steam and Microsoft Store, and Xbox Game Pass.
Obsidian Game Director Josh Sawyer has said Pentiment wouldn't exist without Game Pass
— Benji-Sales (@BenjiSales) November 16, 2022
"I never would have proposed making Pentiment without Game Pass. Like I literally just wouldn't have done it. I just don't think it would have been possible."https://t.co/Mn2G5rrnc7 pic.twitter.com/xkX42LQmX7
Read details on the game below:
Explore history in the modern time through the style of illuminated manuscripts and early modern woodcuts. Pentiment is a narrative-adventure game set in 16th century upper Bavaria in the time of the Holy Roman Empire. You will take on the role of Andreas Maler, a very clever journeyman artist who gets caught up in a series of murders and scandals that spans 25 years in the fictional town of Tassing and Kiersau Abbey.
It will be up to you to decide Andreas’ choices, from his educational background and lifestyle to how he investigates the murders that happen around him. From sneaking into the abbey library late at night to look at secret documents, to playing a round of a tavern’s favorite card game to get information from those who are playing, it’s up to you to choose how to use the precious time you’re given to investigate the suspects. Every decision and accusation Andreas makes carries consequences that will impact the tightly-knit Alpine community for generations to come.
Players who will be joining us at Gamescom this week will be able to get the first look at Pentiment where it will be playable on the show floor. Starting after the events of the first murder in the game, Gamescom attendees will have to choose which one of three leads they have to follow up on to start working on their suspect list. What they do with their time and how they use it is up to them, but what will unravel from their choices and how it will lead to justice will unfold with the full release on November 15.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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I don't know about that, maybe it is how he feels or the context have shifted greatly since then but child of light comes to mind as an example of a game with the same kind of scope as Pentiment and it was developed and published by Ubisoft.
Difference is though that Child of Light was a first party made game by Ubisoft who also have like a hundred other games being made at all times to recoup costs from flops. Obsidian had to find publishers for each of their games till Xbox acquired them and it had to make money. Idk if it would've been impossible, but it would've been very difficult. Obsidian nearly went bankrupt several times throughout their history, so Josh may be on to something with his statement.
Xbox is now tied with Paradox Interactive for most published Obsidian games with just 2 lol. That just goes to show how hard it was for Obsidian to constantly find partners to finance and release their games. They even had to go to Kickstarter several times for money lol
Where do you get this 10% number from? That seems pretty high to me, for a game without much marketing. Many of us that hang out in gaming forums and subscribe to Gamepass will try it. But, almost nobody else has even heard of it. It takes a lot more than hardcore gamers to get to 10% of the game pass subscriber base.
There's more then 25 million subscribers on gamepass. That 10 percent of the 25 million figure was me playing safe. It could be well more than that. The studio that developed it would be enough to carry ti through to that 10 percent. More than 10 percent of gamepass users would have played their rpg that was on gamepass.
While this sounds great for the benefits of GamePass, it’s also a terrible inside look at the stage of the industry. One of the best writers in gaming would it have even tried to make this very good game because he knew publishers wouldn’t bother.
Say what you want about Microsoft’s hands off process with these new studios, but we’ve had three passion project games come out as a direct result. Bleeding Edge, a solid but repetitive and short on content hero brawler. Grounded, a great co-op survival game. And Pentiment, a great visual novel type game with great writing and cool RPG elements.
This seems somewhat misleading. More than likely, the only reason Peniment is on Gamepass is because Obsidian is now owned by Microsoft.
GP likely helps, but since both MS have a lot of money and indies have been releasing without GP or big publisher games yes it could have been made without it. But sure it is good that GP helps out.
Couldn't have done it without gamespass". Then you aren't that talented or don't have much belief in yourself.
Have you seen Pentiment gameplay? It's a very niche game that isn't designed to cater to the major gaming community lol. Concurrent player numbers on Steam at least are only around 1,000 while the game is getting high critical praise and user reviews.
Obsidian as an independent studio would've had a hard time to find a publisher for this game. I'm really enjoying it though!
