Obsidian has finally posted that much needed update for its cult game, Pentiment.
Pentiment, of course, was one of four games that Microsoft Gaming’s bosses revealed would be making their way to rival video game platforms. The game arrived on the Nintendo Switch on February 22, 2024, but there was a big problem with the game upon its release. Or maybe some will say it’s a small problem.
Nevertheless, a lot of Nintendo Switch users were turned off when Pentiment’s home menu icon was nothing more than a small profile picture of Andreas Maler. Maler is the game’s protagonist, so Obsidian’s logic is somewhat understandable. However, they failed to take into account the use case for these home menu icons.
If you’re a real hardcore Switch owner, perhaps someone who has a 1 TB MicroSD card in their system loaded with games, then you know that it can be hard to track down where your games are. Nintendo’s folder solution, while helpful, isn’t a complete solution to the issue. Developers who don’t pay attention to how Switch owners experience their system will fail to do things like make that home menu icon easily recognizable, and at the very least, put the title of the game on the icon.
So it’s not like Maler’s face, illustrated to look like it was painted on illuminated paper, looks terrible. But it really isn’t helpful to Switch players who would look for the game on their storage. Even worse, when they’re actually carrying and playing games on the go, making your game hard to find makes it unnecessarily frustrating.
As reported by Nintendo Life, Obsidian finally published patch 1.3, which brought improvements across all platforms, but made perhaps the most significant one to the Nintendo Switch. They really changed it up to the default cover artwork, but that does help in making the icon recognizable, and of course, it has the name of the game on it too.
Pentiment may have found a new audience among PlayStation users, but it was really well suited for release on the Nintendo Switch. This is not just because of the game’s low system and performance requirements, although that has certainly helped many a smaller title from an independent developer shine on the console.
But what really makes the Switch special is that its breakout success, and the lack of major AAAs willing to bring their games to the platform in its launch year, created a Steam-like gold rush for smaller games on Nintendo’s platform. That helped make games like Crypt of The NecroDancer, Hollow Knight and Sayonara Wild Hearts find loyal audiences on the platform.
And those gamers conditioned to play smaller games will definitely be interested in playing one such title designed by Obsidian’s Josh Sawyer. Hopefully, those fans are satisfied with the changes Josh’s team just posted to the game.
