4Players: Games of the year 2022: 10th place: Pentiment

When it was announced, Pentiment, developed by the renowned role-playing game studio Obsidian Entertainment, looked good enough to eat: an unused scenario (southern Germany in the late Middle Ages, the main character is an illuminator), quirky, loving visuals and an exciting story about unsolved murders in a monastery .

But the result surpassed our expectations a few months later: Anyone who accepts the sluggish pace of the game and the obligation to read endless text boxes will experience a detective adventure like no other. With tragic fates and intimate moments, with clever tricks about the different social backgrounds of the characters, and with a really great story that looks deep into the lives of the protagonists.

There isn’t much to it mechanically – there are no typical adventure puzzles with pegs and time travel – and yet Pentiment is demanding. Because of the amount of historical knowledge that is conveyed and because of the tricky developments. You have to look carefully, listen even better and, above all, decide which people and opportunities to focus on – try everything, visit everyone, sound out everyone, because that’s not possible. If you get involved with Pentiment, you won’t be able to get away from the complex medieval world for around 15 or 20 hours.

11th place: F1 22
12th place: tunic
13th place: Stray
14th place: Signalis
15th place: Bayonetta 3
16th place: A Plague Tale: Requiem
17th place: Gran Turismo 7
18th place: Return to Monkey Island