Penance is not a game like the others. Obsidian’s new game (The Outer Worlds, Fallout: New Vegas) launched Tuesday on Xbox Game Pass is a bit as if Umberto Eco had written it rose namebut in the form of a book in which you are the hero.
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This unique historical game is a kind of detective story with monks, peasants, craftsmen and barons. It is a game that is above all textual. Yes, paintings drawn like an old book are excellent, but Penance is above all a long series of texts and choices.
After playing it a bit over the past few days, it’s clear that Obsidian’s latest title isn’t a game for everyone. One has to have some interest in history to appreciate it (especially this period at the beginning of the Renaissance, when the Middle Ages are still recent). And you have to like slow games, without any action.
Pentiment’s pace will not be for everyone. Video recording: Maxime Johnson.
I liked to play Penance over the past few days. I won’t give it a full review though as I haven’t finished it (yet). It wasn’t because of a lack of interest that I moved slowly through the story, but rather because I still felt like it wasn’t the right time to continue the adventure. At 10pm in front of my Xbox in the living room, it just wasn’t the kind of game I wanted to play.
I actually want to play Penance at the same times and places that I like to read. On the bus, in a waiting room, on a terrace when it’s warm, in my bed.
However, the solution is simple: with its simple controls and minimal system requirements (on a PC, a mid-range computer launched 10 years ago can run Penance), the game would be perfect for phones. Yes, technically it can be played with Xbox Game Pass in the cloud, but playing on a mobile network requires a lot of data, and not all subscribers to the service have Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which is necessary to play in the cloud.
And yet, just today, Xbox CEO Phil Spencer acknowledged in a lengthy interview with The Verge how far behind the brand is on mobile, and how critical mobile is to a gaming company. .
Awaiting the acquisition by Activision (mainly for candy destruction, Call of Duty: Mobile and Diablo mobile), Microsoft could already begin to impose itself on Android and iOS by offering original and high-end titles that are already part of its catalog and that would have their place on a phone screen.
And Booth would be the perfect game to make it big.