Pentiment Was Originally Called Palimpsest, Reveals Game Director

The director of Pentiment has revealed that the 2D action role-playing title of Obsidian Entertainment was initially planned to be named Palimpsest. The name was supposed to complement the game’s art style which resembles manuscripts of the late medieval times. This remained the game’s non-working title for a while until Microsoft’s legal team raised concerns.

They foresaw potential issues with trademarking Palimpsest so the action-adventure game was renamed to a more pronounceable name, Pentiment. Josh Swayer, the director of Pentiment, made the revelation on his Tumblr. He was answering a fan’s query on the platform. Josh said, 

The original non-working title of Pentiment actually was Palimpsest! Microsoft legal sensed potential difficulty with securing that name so I renamed it to Pentiment.”

There were speculations about a potential sequel to Pentiment. Palimpsest was making rounds as the possible name for the aforementioned sequel. But Josh put those rumors to rest. According to him, he always meant for Pentiment to be a “standalone story” and that he has no intention of releasing a sequel to his narrative-driven 2D title. Although he did not rule out the possibility of Pentiment inspired game.

And no, I have no plans to make any sort of sequel, spiritual or otherwise, for Pentiment. I always intended it as a stand alone story. It may inspire ideas (hopefully not just for me!) in the future, but I’m happy with where we’ve left it.“

The fans are quite amused at this reveal. Most of them were of the view that Pentiment sounds much better than the non-working title for the game as Palimpsest feels like a mouthful. The fans also seemed to agree with Josh’s decision regarding Pentiment’s sequel. In their view, the 2D title’s story reached its completion but they wouldn’t mind if the team had something new to add to the story. Moreover, they hoped that Obsidian Entertainment would push for smaller projects like Pentiment.

Pentiment is a narrative-driven action-adventure single-player 2D title developed by Obsidian Entertainment for Xbox Game Studios. It was released on 15th November 2022. The game is based in the fictional Alpine town of Tassing in Upper Bavaria in the 16th century. The plot of the game revolves around a murder mystery where the player has to collect evidence by walking around the town and talking to the townsfolk.

Pentiment is available for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.