The Occultist

Engraved in my mind are images that would make any man tremble

The Occultist is a first-person paranormal investigation thriller from debut developer DALOAR and publisher Daedalic Entertainment, released April 8, 2026 on Windows for $29.99. You play Alan Rebels, a paranormal investigator drawn to the abandoned British island of Godstone after his father's disappearance, uncovering a buried cult and the supernatural forces it left behind. It landed to a Mostly Positive reception (370 reviews, roughly 76% positive) from a broad, genuinely international sample — English, Russian, German, French, Chinese, Japanese, Brazilian, and more — and the overall picture is of a debut with real craft undercut by some very specific, very corroborated weak points.

A pendulum-driven hook that earns its comparisons

The most consistently praised element of the game is its central investigation mechanic: Alan uses a dowsing pendulum to reveal hidden clues, paths, and dangers layered across each location, and reviewers repeatedly single it out as a genuinely fresh spin on a genre that's leaned hard on flashlight-and-notebook conventions for years. Comparisons to Silent Hill, Alan Wake, and Layers of Fear come up constantly, and while several reviewers concede the story treads familiar ground, the pendulum mechanic and the variety of locations — a derelict funhouse, a foggy cemetery, a decaying manor, an abandoned hospital — keep the exploration loop feeling purposeful rather than repetitive.

Geralt's voice carries real weight

A specific and recurring point of praise across nearly every language in the sample is the lead vocal performance: Alan Rebels is voiced by the actor known for playing Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher games, and reviewers repeatedly cite the delivery — described as low, gravelly, and immediately recognizable — as elevating dialogue that several critics otherwise call flat or clichéd on the page. It's a genuinely effective piece of casting for a budget title, and it shows up as a talking point in reviews that are otherwise lukewarm on almost everything else.

Puzzles that reward some players and strand others

Puzzle design draws a real split. A number of reviewers describe the difficulty as reasonable once players actually use the in-game journal, with more than one specifically pushing back on claims that the puzzles require outside help. But a meaningful counter-thread, especially strong in the manor sequence near the end, describes players getting genuinely stuck without a walkthrough, citing poor in-game guidance, obscure item interactions, and — in one specific case — a progress-blocking bug where an incomplete puzzle in the manor prevents returning to finish it after advancing the story.

A horror game that mostly forgets to scare

The single most consistent criticism across the sample, regardless of language, is that The Occultist undersells its own horror billing. Reviewers describe the ghosts and supernatural threats as simple, predictable, and rarely dangerous, and several explicitly contrast the marketing's "epic orchestral" horror trailer with a finished game that plays more like a moody puzzle room than a tense survival-horror experience. This isn't a universal complaint — some reviewers do cite specific jump scares and a genuinely unnerving in-game song that landed for them — but "not actually scary" is close to a majority position in the sample, coming from fans and critics alike. A few reviewers go further and argue the store page's tags actively oversell the game, with one specifically noting the absence of any real cosmic-horror or Lovecraftian elements despite genre tags suggesting otherwise.

Combat is the game's clearest misstep

Where puzzle criticism is split, criticism of the game's late-game combat and boss encounters is close to unanimous among the reviewers who bring it up. A rat-swarm boss and the final confrontation both draw specific, repeated frustration — clunky hit detection, unclear objectives, and difficulty spikes that feel disconnected from the rest of the pacing. Several reviewers report being unable to finish the game because of these sections, and more than one otherwise-positive review explicitly recommends the developer cut or heavily rework the combat in a future patch.

Rough technical edges for a budget release

Technical polish is a genuine mixed bag. Multiple reviewers, especially in German and Russian, report frame drops and stuttering that feel disproportionate to the game's visual fidelity, along with broken HDR support and audio limited to stereo with little ambient depth — a notable gap for a horror game leaning on atmosphere. One Brazilian reviewer reports losing an entire five-hour save file outright. None of this is universal, and Daedalic has shipped several post-launch patches addressing bugs and performance, but it's a real, corroborated pattern rather than isolated hardware complaints.

Who should investigate Godstone Island

The Occultist is easiest to recommend to fans of atmosphere-first investigation games who care more about setting, story, and a strong central performance than genuine horror tension or combat challenge — that's exactly what the game delivers best. It's a much harder sell for players specifically chasing scares, or for anyone likely to bounce hard off a rough combat-heavy final stretch, since both of those complaints are well-corroborated rather than outliers.

The verdict

The Occultist is a promising, well-acted debut with a genuinely clever central mechanic and real atmospheric craft, let down by a horror pitch it mostly doesn't deliver on and a combat-heavy ending that frustrates even reviewers who enjoyed everything leading up to it. It's worth a look for investigation-game fans, ideally once a patch or two — and a discount — have smoothed out its rougher edges.