2022 Games of the Year: Pentiment, and Jim’s other picks

I had the pleasure of reviewing Pentiment for the site earlier this year and if you read that, it probably won’t be any surprise to you that it’s my GOTY. I’ve rarely been more enamoured with a game, and at first glance, it seemed so unlikely to click: its art style, painstakingly modelled on the manuscripts and frescos of the 16th century and thus being full of colour and figures drawn with thick black outlines, strikes modern eyes as distinctly unserious after a century of conditioning by saturday morning cartoons and Monty Python interludes. You’d be forgiven for playing the entire game constantly expecting to be interrupted by a giant foot.

Except, you wouldn’t, because what ensues is not cheap comedy (despite a few tasteful sight gags) but a masterful study of how art shapes our perception of history, which starts off as a Cadfael style murder mystery in a local abbey but fans out into a quarter-century epic about the lives and loves of a small Bavarian town nestled in the alps amongst a heap of Roman ruins, pagan folklore, and a backdrop of religious turmoil.

It’s an astounding piece of work, and it really pushes the boundaries of what video games are capable of – here they are, resurrecting the artistic sensibilities of a long deceased society in order to let us walk in their shoes. To do this via their art, not ours (as is the case with something like Assassin’s Creed) and with conversation and contemplation, not violence (as is the case with something like Assassin’s Creed) is a testament to how far this medium has come, and also – for good or ill – a showcase of what’s possible with a subscription model. As Josh Sawyer himself said, this game simply wouldn’t exist without Game Pass, which makes it so much easier for studios to take risks on passion projects like Pentiment, which have the potential to massively pay off.