The Occultist PS5 Review – The Occultist had a great concept behind it. Explore an island full of ghosts and put a stop to an evil cult. The game definitely delivers on that premise, but it just doesn’t do it very well. What started as a strong concept quickly turns into a tedious, sometimes bafflingly confusing excursion through various locations that never deliver thrills or chills.
The Occultist PS5 Review
A Story Filled With Cults And Rituals
You play Alan, an Occultist who comes to Godstone Island in search of his father. The island is quiet, and Alan arrives in a small farmhouse where something sinister has transpired.
A murder that Alan decided he’s going to solve. It starts strong, but as you progress and explore other locations like an Orphanage and an amusement park, it quickly starts to go downhill.
You find out that the richest man on the island decided to perform a ritual that has left every single person on the island dead. The issue is that everyone looks like they’ve been dead for almost twenty years.
You explore the island sometime in the future, but the question is why nobody has bothered to come to Godstone in all that time to find out what happened to the people is confusing and doesn’t make any sense.
None Of The Stalkers Are Threating Or Intimidating
There are a lot of plot holes, not just in the main narrative, but also in the very few residents still alive on the island. Most of whom are stalkers who follow you around and hurt you if they come near you. It’s a concept that’s become very popular in the first-person horror adventure titles.
Some games do it well, others not so much. The Occultist, unfortunately, is the latter. The stalkers can be outrun and avoided by simply entering any room that isn’t the one they are patrolling. There were even parts where I just walked behind them, and they never noticed me.
Almost Cartoonish Enemy Design
They are also laughably cartoonish. An old lady in a wheelchair, whom I should probably be able to grab the chair from behind and push them out of the way, and a possessed doll that has explosives strapped to it. Theses foes stop when they approach you and give you a whole three seconds to get away before they explode.
None of them pose any real threat or danger, and for the most part, they get in the way and annoy you when you try to solve a puzzle. They magically appear next to you and start attacking.
They also get in the way and stop forcing you to engage them, making them chase you just to get them out of the way. As an Occultist, I would think I would have some skills to defend myself against them, in some way, shape, or form.
Unique Use Of The Talisman Adds To The Exploration
Most of the game has you exploring various environments, collecting items, and solving puzzles. Alan also has a powerful talisman that gives him unique abilities. When it comes to solving puzzles, his talisman allows him to see hidden objects only through the glass portion of the talisman.
It’s a nice feature that had me walking around, looking through the talisman’s glass to find hidden messages and trails to help you find your path if you’re lost. The talisman unlocks other abilities later on, like reversing time to fix broken objects, manifesting a raven to reach objects at a distance, and controlling rats.
Cheap Thrills
Exploration is the most enjoyable part of the game. Figuring out solutions was fun and felt traditional. None of it is difficult, mind you, and most of it is just trial and error, but I enjoyed doing it. Elsewhere, there’s collectibles to find scattered throughout the game, and utilizing the talisman to solve some of the harder puzzles is a nice touch.
For a horror game, The Occultist doesn’t pack any punches. There are occasional jump scares, but sometimes they happen when you’re not even looking in the direction it happens, so you miss it and only hear the sound cues.
The ghosts you encounter also happily natter away to you and help you out by telling you what you have to do to move on in the story. These ghosts are important to the main story, but never make an appearance again after their main story part is over.
Bland And Uninspired
Visually, the game isn’t anything special. It’s passable but looks dated by today’s standards. The textures are muddy, and the character models are pretty basic to boot. Even the game’s visual effects look off in many moments.
The game also suffers from a severe issue where items and documents you find glitch and appear redacted, with black lines appearing all over them. The developers have said this issue would be fixed by launch time.
Meanwhile, the game’s audio also suffers. Doug Cockle, famous for voicing Geralt in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, does his best but sounds bored reading the script. His constant one-liners also take away from the mood and setting. The soundtrack is also fairly bland and doesn’t feature any really memorable tracks.
The Occultist looked like it would be a fun, enjoyable horror game, but it’s neither fun nor particularly enjoyable. It’s passable, but it doesn’t provide anything to really keep your interest. Easy enemy encounters are accompanied by enjoyable exploration and fun puzzle-solving. It’s just a shame that the best parts of it are so few and far between.
The Occultist releases on April 8, 2025, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X, and PC.
Review code kindly provided by PR.