The Occultist Review. A high-quality, but not scary at all horror

The Occultist is yet another walking simulator in a horror setting that, unlike EMOTIONLESS: The Last Ticket, which we covered in a recent review, deserves attention not only from let's players but also from those who enjoy wandering through interesting places and solving puzzles. It's a solid, high-quality project with a decent story, good graphics, and interesting ideas, but unfortunately, it's absolutely not scary — even by the standards of the worst horror games. What makes The Occultist stand out and why you should spend your time on it — we'll tell you in our review.

A good story is the key to success in narrative-driven horror games. Unfortunately, not every project in this genre can boast a strong script. In most cases, the protagonist in walking simulators is searching for relatives or ends up in creepy places they need to escape from. The Occultist strictly follows this indie industry standard. The game’s plot is overly simple and frankly boring, unlikely to capture the interest of a true genre fan. If you love quality horror games, we recommend checking out our list of the best horror games of all time.

The premise of The Occultist is fairly standard: the protagonist arrives by boat at a mysterious island to uncover the secret behind his father’s disappearance. There, he discovers a deserted town where all the locals died under mysterious circumstances. Moreover, our protagonist is not just an ordinary person, but something like an exorcist: he can see not only half-rotted bodies, but also supernatural phenomena. He is aided by a pendant-pendulum that allows him to interact with spirits, rewind time, and even control a familiar in the form of a raven.

The game’s setting painfully resembles the first Silent Hill: cults, children, experiments, rituals, and a mysterious town shrouded in fog. However, unlike the creation of the Japanese studio, the local landscapes are sterile and lack any special charm. Most of the time, the protagonist will be wandering through various buildings, collecting pieces of puzzles, and communicating with the dead. And the most disappointing part: all the locations in the game are literally repetitions of everything already seen in horror games. Hospitals and orphanages are unlikely to surprise anyone, let alone scare.

Despite its solid visuals, The Occultist lacks a refined style and creepy imagery that should keep players tense while searching for the next puzzle piece. All the local jump scares not only fail to frighten—they make you smile with how clumsy they are. In addition, the evil spirits and enemies, who either patrol locations or chase the protagonist, don’t evoke any disgust. They certainly can’t compete with the monsters from Outlast and Amnesia when it comes to creating a sense of dread.

Throughout the game, you’ll be searching for various notes, examining objects, delving into the local lore, and all the while feeling quite comfortable. Despite the weak main story, The Occultist features well-developed lore, which is much more interesting to explore than the search for the protagonist’s father. As is typical for all walking simulators, the game is full of notes, drawings, and photographs that reveal the lore far more than dialogues and cutscenes. If you enjoy detective investigations, you’ll definitely like The Occultist, but don’t expect a good story from the game.

Despite being a narrative-driven horror, The Occultist features plenty of gameplay elements that break up the sterile, genre-typical walking. As mentioned in the previous section, the protagonist has a pendulum (which he keeps under his shirt) that allows him to interact with spirits and objects. Essentially, this is the main tool you’ll be using throughout the entire playthrough.

With the pendulum, you can see things hidden from the eyes of ordinary people. The player must constantly bring the pendant to the protagonist’s face to find story hooks and puzzle clues. Of course, it can’t really be called a full-fledged gameplay feature, since you just need to hold down the left mouse button when entering a new location and look at objects through a tiny piece of glass. However, as you progress through the story, the pendulum learns to manipulate objects and even summon a spirit raven, which you can control to collect collectibles.

Simply put, the pendulum in The Occultist is a narrative tool and a way to stretch out the gameplay. You can’t interact with every object in a location or open alternative paths using this item. Its functionality is strictly scripted and activates only in certain places necessary for solving puzzles.

The puzzles in The Occultist are surprisingly varied. Of course, as in other indie horrors, you’ll still have to collect puzzle pieces scattered around huge locations to unlock new chapters of the story, but there are also some rather interesting examples. For instance, to open a safe, you need to examine name tags and find the right name. In another puzzle, you literally have to walk across the entire location to the kitchen, rewind time, pick up an item, and examine it to find a code word. A particular highlight is a text-based puzzle where you have to extract a password from a poem.

What’s truly annoying in The Occultist is the pointless backtracking. You’ll have to walk back and forth through confined spaces a lot. Some story items are hidden so well that you’ll be forced to make endless loops around the map searching for them. Admittedly, this is part of the walking simulator gameplay—where, excuse the tautology, you have to walk. But due to not-so-logical level design and randomly hidden puzzle pieces, we spent way too much time memorizing all available routes.

The developers of The Occultist clearly wanted to break up the game’s pace and add chase elements inspired by Outlast, so they introduced enemies that patrol locations. As mentioned earlier, they are absolutely not scary and pose no threat to the player. Moreover, their behavior patterns are quite poor, so they can easily get stuck in textures or confused by the navigation mesh. For example, in the hospital, the player is pursued by an old lady in a wheelchair who can’t enter certain rooms, so you’ll only see her a couple of times in some corridor. Later, she’s joined by the ghost of a doctor, who also can’t really harm you. In addition to spirits, you’ll encounter other creatures, like exploding dolls, but none of this creates tension or suspense, despite the panic-inducing music and the protagonist’s loud heartbeat. If you’re looking to shoot monsters in horror games, we recommend checking out our list of the best zombie games — you’re sure to find something you’ll enjoy there.

Overall, The Occultist is a fairly standard walking simulator with puzzles and note-hunting, featuring some attempts to diversify the familiar genre formula. Unlike most similar games, it stands out thanks to its quality and meticulous attention to detail. Each puzzle is genuinely interesting, and interacting with the environment enriches the otherwise monotonous wandering around the map. It’s just a shame that the game isn’t scary and doesn’t even manage to create suspense. If it worked as a proper horror, it would be invaluable. And if you want to get scared together with friends, check out our selection: "Best Co-op Horror Games — Scary Games to Play with a Friend".

The Occultist is built on Unreal Engine and, unlike many other indie creations, can genuinely boast good graphics and pleasant lighting. It’s clear that unique assets and environmental elements were created specifically for the game. It’s interesting to walk around the locations and examine the surroundings. Most of the textures are sharp, and the text written on them is clear. Yes, the models of characters, spirits, and monsters are rather dull and standard, but that’s about what you’d expect from a walking simulator.

What The Occultist really excels at is its soundtrack. The music was composed by Pepe Herrero, and it works perfectly for building the atmosphere.

As for performance, everything is tolerable, but nothing special. We played The Occultist on PC with the highest possible settings—and it barely managed 30 frames per second. Optimization is clearly lacking, so on most setups it’s better to play on medium settings. If you have a low-end PC but still want to play something, here’s our TOP-25 Best Shooters for Low-End PCs and Laptops. However, this can seriously affect the lighting and sharpness, without which the overall picture looks dull. On the bright side, we didn’t encounter any obvious bugs or errors and completed the game without issues.

The Occultist is a standard, albeit high-quality, walking simulator that calls itself a horror game, though it really isn’t one. The story is derivative and boring, but the setting and atmosphere motivate you to explore locations and engage in detective investigations. The game features interesting puzzles and gameplay elements that break up the monotonous wandering through confined spaces, so it might appeal not only to fans of the genre, but also to lovers of atmospheric adventures. Overall, it’s a good game to pass the time without regretting it afterward.