The Occultist Review

A slow-burning supernatural investigation that prioritizes atmosphere over fear.

The popularity and frequency of investigative horror stories change with time. However, it appears to be returning, as titles such as Cthulhu: The Dark Abyss and The Occultist have been added to the list of possibilities. When you haven't played a lot of games like these for a long time, it's a good idea to play something that relies more on exploration, deduction, and an unsettling tale than it does on plain fear.

The first installment of the DALOAR series does not make an effort to be as frightful or loud as other games in the same genre. Rather, it is a supernatural thriller that focuses on mood, mystery, and how a deeply painful past gradually comes to light. This is how it comes to be recognized. The Occultist does not contain any cheap jump scares or stress that lingers.

On the contrary, the eerie and gloomy world-building is meant to make you feel emotionally affected.

Even though it takes a risky strategy that isn't always successful, it is clear that it truly wants to succeed in everything it does. The Occultist is a game that wants you to ponder and feel scared at the same time. It contains many settings and a tale based on the people.  You begin The Occultist as Alan Rebels, who is also known as Alex.

He is an occultist who goes to a faraway, lonely region to hunt for his father, who has been missing for a long time. If you think of the setting as the spooky village of Godstone or an empty island lost in time, the outcome is the same. You're heading into an area where something really horrible has happened. There are layers of otherworldly intervention and a long-ignored disaster that hide the answers you need.

Doug Cockle, who is known for playing Geralt of Rivia, handles the voice acting, which makes every sentence sound more important. Alan's continual commentary keeps you in his head, whether he's pondering about what happened, hunting for clues, or reacting to the terrible things going on around him. His speech is likewise well-written, even though some of the supporting characters' accents sound a little odd. 

You can see that the folks who lived here a long time ago are no longer here. The only things that remain are fragments of their memories, echoes of their lives, and the spirits of those who have passed on. Some of these creatures are nice and can give you hints about what happened, while others are terrible and are the worst things that can happen when a ritual goes wrong. 

You begin your inquiry with a mystical pendulum, a notebook, and a voice that sounds calm but recognizable right away.

With the help of notes, anecdotes about the setting, and visions of otherworldly beings, the plot can be pieced together more subtly. The plot of The Occultist is unsettling, and it features perilous experiments as well as the negative outcomes that might occur when you experiment with things that other people do not understand.  

The story doesn't depend on surprises all the time. You get more and more afraid as you learn more about reality. As the world unravels around you, you're genuinely driven to uncover what went wrong.  

The Occultist is really about digging into things and finding them out. As you wander through several places that are all connected, you look for clues, solve puzzles, and use your pendulum to talk to the supernatural realm. There isn't a set way to battle here, and that's what makes the whole thing what it is.  

Your pendulum is your most important tool, and you may use it for a lot of things. You can use it to hunt for hidden things and echoes of past events from the very beginning. These little bits of the past help you understand what happened and get on with your next goal. As you play, you will gain additional skills that will make your arsenal more interesting.  

One ability lets you go back in time in some instances, allowing you to get things back or return to critical places you need to complete problems. One lets you control a ghostly raven that can assist you in retrieving things that are out of reach. You can even tell groups of mice to interact with their surroundings; this capability is rarely used and could be improved further.

Usually, navigation works well.

No landmarks or maps guide you around The Occultist's regions. The Occultist makes exploration feel natural, which is a good break from other horror games where you often end up wandering about aimlessly. There are still certain areas that are like mazes that are hard to understand in design, but they never get too annoying.

When you encounter an enemy, you can't battle them; instead, you must sneak away. You can only hide or run away if you notice ghosts that want to get you. The Occultist is quite forgiving about this, though. If you get caught, you don't have to fail right away, and most of the time, you can get away with it. Sometimes, though, things in the world might trap you and kill you, which is more unfair than irritating.

The puzzles in The Occultist are one of the better sections of The Occultist, even though they have some issues. They are incredibly hard, and to get ahead, you often have to use all your skills and switch between them. Most of the time, there is a gratifying feeling of rationality to what you're doing, whether you're putting together puzzle pieces, shifting things around, or figuring out what the hints imply.

What makes these puzzles stand out is how well they fit in with their environment.

They don't seem like distinct duties; rather, they strengthen the story as a whole. You typically learn something new about the plot when you solve it, which makes it feel like a challenge instead of an issue.

But some things don't work the way they should. It can be irritating when you know the answer to a puzzle but can't figure out how to execute it perfectly because it requires very precise inputs. When you touch objects carefully, and the Occultist doesn't record your actions, it can disrupt immersion and make you think about the rules in a negative way.

It's a double-edged sword when it comes to fighting or not fighting. On the one hand, getting away from all the fighting makes The Occultist more about being vulnerable and tense. But it also makes it harder to solve problems productively. The pendulum can be used for many things, but it can't keep bad people away, which is a wasted opportunity.

Bad things happen with enemy AI. Most of the time, angry ghosts stay on their patrol pathways and don't go off them. This means avoiding them is less about expertise and more about awareness.

There are several boss fights in The Occultist that don't exactly fit in. These events change the rules of The Occultist in a big way. You have to be quick on your feet to deal with them, and the whole thing feels more like a game. The final monster features some puzzle parts; these fights don't seem necessary and shift the tone a little bit from what it would be otherwise.

There isn't a typical XP system or a way to grind here. You can only move forward by telling the tale and learning new abilities. This maintains the pace and ensures the tale and discoveries remain the main focus, avoiding the same things over and over. It also means that your experience is essentially linear, and you can't vary how you play or make it your own very much.

As the studio's first game, The Occultist looks great. The Occultist is built on Unreal Engine and features a spooky carnival, deep woodlands, and crumbling buildings. Each site is designed to evoke a specific mood and locale.

The level design is also noteworthy. No matter where you are in The Occultist, whether it's in the narrow halls of a hospital or in more open areas later on, you constantly feel uneasy. The magnificent environments match The Occultist and the plot.

You can usually hide in a nearby room. The occasional unanticipated behavior of enemies doesn't have a lasting impact.

On PC, The Occultist runs great. A mid-range rig with an RTX 4060 runs the game smoothly. Frame drops are rare, and wait times are short enough to keep you engaged. Unreal Engine games rarely perform well, so this performance issue is intriguing.

The sound design is good but not great. The music and background sounds create a tense atmosphere that makes you look around nervously. The voice acting is generally good, but the supporting cast isn't as strong, which can make it difficult to get into the plot.

There isn't a scary part of The Occultist that will make you jump or reach for the light switch. It's more of a slow, thoughtful experience that focuses on mood and tales. It's a game that wants you to think more than do, and you can explore its universe and learn its secrets at your own pace.

There are many good things about this situation. The story was fantastic, the settings were breathtaking, and the key gameplay elements, particularly the pendulum, were both fresh and entertaining. But it's also difficult to overlook the issues. You can't truly attack adversaries, the riddles aren't always easy, and the boss fights are strange, so it doesn't realize its full potential.

Still, as a debut effort, it’s an impressive showing from DALOAR. It may not stand among the genre’s greatest hits, but it carves out a niche for itself as a thoughtful and atmospheric experience. If you’re willing to embrace its slower pace and overlook its flaws, you’ll find a story that lingers in your mind long after the credits roll.