Xbox's latest exclusive is being review bombed

One of the most critically acclaimed games of the year, from cherished developer Obsidian Entertainment, is being review bombed within an inch of its life now that it's on Xbox Game Pass. It's a shame as the premise itself sounds intriguing.

Set in Bavaria in the 16th century and inspired by Night in the Woods and Oxenfree, Pentiment has the player step into the shoes of artist Andreas Maler. After his friend is accused of the murder of a prominent public figure, Maler starts his unofficial career as a detective, speaking to suspects, uncovering evidence and following the threads of other conspiracies in this remote alpine town.

Check out the trailer showing off the game's gorgeous art style here:

“One of the key things in the game is that we do not ever definitively tell you, canonically, [who] the murderer [is],” said director Josh Sawyer in an interview with IGN in the summer. He wasn't kidding, by the way, because there is no definite way of discerning who's the villain even if you gather all the evidence in the game.

Evidently, this is going to appeal to a certain sort of gamer. Those who didn't appreciate Pentiment's narrative-heavy approach and oldey-timey art style are airing their grievances on Metacritic, where the critic score stands at 85 and the user score is 6.7 on Xbox Series X.

"This isn't even a game, it is a virtual book. I only played 20 minutes of this steaming pile of garbage and that's enough for me to know that there isn't any actual gameplay. I was expecting to beat up some bad guys and these lazy developers can't even do the bare minimum," chastised one.

"After 2 hours of some of the most boring dialogue, boring scenes, and boring 'gameplay' I immediately uninstalled it. This game may or may not be for you. I'm going back to playing quality games like God of War: Ragnarok!!!" read another review. I'm not sure if players saw the trailer and believed it to be a 2D side-scrolling spiritual successor to Kingdom Come Deliverance, when it cites other slower narrative stories as its inspiration. Plus, perhaps we've been spoiled in the age of the Internet. We can look at videos of capybaras whenever we want to, whereas if you were bored in the medieval period, you might have to tend to cattle or catch a disease to pass the time.