Obsidian Explains Why Pentiment Has No Real Killer

Obsidian’s Pentiment remains one of the most distinctive narrative games of recent years, not only for its art and setting but also for how it subverts the expectations of a murder mystery. Set in 16th-century Bavaria, the story follows artist Andreas Maler as he attempts to uncover the truth behind a string of killings in the small town of Tassing. But no matter how carefully players investigate or which clues they pursue, the truth never fully resolves.

Game director, Josh Sawyer, says to PC Gamer that’s entirely intentional.

“From the very beginning I said, ‘I think that for this to be compelling in the way that I want it to be, there cannot be a right answer,’” said Sawyer during a conversation with PC Gamer at this year’s GDC. He explained that even within the development team, no one truly knows who the killer is — not even him. “People on the team would ask me, then people at Xbox would ask me, and I’m like, ‘No! There isn’t!’ And I will say that there are people who, in retrospect… seem more likely to have done it, but that doesn’t mean they did it.” — Josh Sawyer

This lack of a definitive culprit is central to the game’s design. In Pentiment, the player must accuse someone — but the evidence is always inconclusive. Whether driven by logic, emotion, or guilt, the final decision leaves players uncertain about their choice, reflecting a world where truth and morality rarely align perfectly. Sawyer’s approach rejects traditional mystery structures where a correct solution exists and rewards careful deduction.

Sawyer, best known for his work on Fallout: New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity, described this ambiguity as a deliberate shift away from conventional puzzle-solving.

“When there’s always a right answer and it’s a puzzle and you kind of either get it right or you get it wrong… I just don’t think there’s a lot there from an RPG developer’s perspective,” he said.

For him, the emphasis lies in the choices themselves — and the emotional consequences that follow.

“It made me think, well, what if you didn’t know and you just had to keep going, right? And in the way that we do RPGs: choice and consequences, we say, ‘You made this choice. If you have second thoughts, you’ve just got to live with that.’”

The protagonist, Andreas Maler, mirrors this philosophy. “You’re not a detective, you’re a f***ing artist. You’re not good at this,” Sawyer noted. Andreas isn’t trained to solve crimes but is instead thrust into a situation where his loyalty and moral instincts drive his actions. His primary goal is not to find the “truth” but to protect his mentor, Piero, the kindly old monk accused of the initial murder. “Andreas… is motivated to prevent Piero from dying, and will never offer him up, because it’s inconceivable to him that Piero could have done this. That’s sort of like, sorry player, Andreas will not allow Piero to die. You have to pick someone else.” — Josh Sawyer

This narrative constraint forces players to grapple with the same sense of helplessness that defines Andreas’s journey. The decision to accuse another person — with incomplete evidence — becomes a moral test rather than a logical one. Every choice leaves a lingering uncertainty, reinforcing the game’s central idea that justice and truth are not always aligned.

Pentiment’s commitment to ambiguity has earned it lasting recognition as one of Obsidian’s most ambitious storytelling experiments. Rather than offering closure, it leaves players reflecting on the cost of their choices and the imperfection of human judgment. By refusing to provide a “correct” answer, Obsidian transformed what could have been a typical whodunit into a meditation on guilt, responsibility, and the limits of knowledge.