7.5/10 The Occultist is a pretty good paranormal investigative game. Gameplay consists mainly of exploration and puzzle-solving while unraveling a mystery. The puzzles are logical and well designed. There are stealth sections with enemies you have to avoid, however most of them were not challenging or engaging. The high production values carried the game a lot, it looks and sounds great.

Played one hour. That's all I needed to see to immediately formulate my opinion on this game and get a refund. If you are a horror fan or enjoy horror games in any context, do not buy this game. I feel harsh saying this, as this is this developers first game, but it's genuinely bad. Typically in reviews, I like to post positive things about the games I play with the negatives but I cannot for the life of me think of a positive.

For them to acquire Doug Cockle as the lead VA is amazing, he is a fantastic voice actor (VA for Geralt of Rivia in the Witcher series), but he does not fit this role at all. The entire time I played, albeit shortly, I only referred to him as Geralt, and it felt as if he drifted in and out of the accent horribly where it became jolting and bizarre when he used British slang.

There is no atmosphere built in this game at all, there is no horror and there is nothing spooky. It felt odd and rehearsed and typical. At no point did I begin to care for the story or become immersed in the game which is insane to say after doting through sloppy quips and horrible writing for a whole hour. Not to mention it feels like you are just thrown in with almost no context of your character or why he's there besides his father being missing.

The scares are cheap jumpscares and at one point I didn't even register I was being chased until the music clued me in. It's just bland, the whole thing, the art in the journal was well done but everything else just felt reheated and served slop from the hundreds of other horror games I've played with no genuine passion or love put behind it.

I could already tell where the story was going, sure there may be some big twist I was unaware of but it's 2026 and game developers really need to understand the whole cult trope is overused and predictable. If you're going to use this trope, you HAVE to do something more with it for it to even be appealing.

The specs needed to run this game are insane, by the way. I am able to run it on epic graphics and it looks beautiful but I don't play horror games or games in general for graphics, I play them for stories and fun. Did the whole budget go into the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sun rays? ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

I sound like a ♥♥♥♥♥, I totally understand that, but the straw that truly broke the camels back is how HORRIBLE the main characters writing is and his stupid dialogue quips. He did not give a ♥♥♥♥ about ANYTHINGGGGGG and unless you're a desensitized marine corp. vet with 3 tours under your belt, can you PLEASE comment or say something about the dead bodies you see? The writing just felt like they chose the VA and then went, 'Oh, well, Geralt is sarcastic and witty in The Witcher, that's what we'll do!' Oh my god.

I genuinely would not recommend this game to anyone, ESPECIALLY at the price point. Maybe if it goes on sale for like 2 bucks and you wanna play something to laugh at, sure, go for it, but other than that it's a genuine waste of money. I try to play all the games I acquire to the fullest extent or at least finish them before giving a review, but the idea that I couldn't even make it TWO hours before just quitting the game over its horrendous everything says a lot. I believe first time developers should be given grace, but this is just... slop, easily put.

Some puzzles are challenging and some puzzles made no sense. The part with Gabriel on the island ,I thought was dumb, made no sense. Overall it is still worth playing. Graphics are good.

Basically its Resident Evil puzzles without the combat.

Overall a great game. Highly underrated.