There’s nothing quite like a good, old-fashioned horror game, and upcoming debut title The Occultist seems to understand this, prioritizing solid scares and a compelling narrative. After the thrill ride that was Resident Evil Requiem, I wouldn’t blame horror fans for wanting a horror experience that’s a bit more meat and potatoes, which is precisely where The Occultist may be able to help when it releases on April 8.
Coming from Spanish developer DALOAR (formerly Pentakill Studios), The Occultist queues up a familiar premise: the player steps into the shoes of Alan Rebels, a paranormal investigator searching for his father who vanished under mysterious circumstances. In the wake of his disappearance, all that remains are Alan’s memories of Godstone, the enigmatic island where his father claimed to have been raised. In search of answers and hopefully a reunion with his dad, Alan ventures into Godstone, with only a handful of special tools and his career experience to guide him. But no investigative tenure can prepare him for what he will encounter in this haunting and bizarre place.
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The Occultist Hones In On the Atmosphere, Puzzles, and Exploration
The basic idea behind The Occultist, which currently has a free demo available on Steam, is that Godstone, where the majority of the game takes place, has been abandoned since 1950. Until that point, the island was populated by a “macabre cult that performed disturbing experiments and cruel rituals.” Whatever “rituals” this cult performed seems to have had bizarre and terrible consequences, transforming Godstone into a hellish hotbed of supernatural activity.
Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.
Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.
Easy (5)Medium (7)Hard (10)
That premise certainly has shades of the Silent Hill franchise, and it’s likely that The Occultist is at least partially inspired by Konami’s seminal horror franchise, but its moment-to-moment gameplay reminded me a lot more of Resident Evil 7. There’s the first-person perspective, of course, but also the prioritization of tone and puzzle-solving over combat. Players won’t be running and gunning in The Occultist, nor will they grow increasingly more powerful through an ever-growing arsenal of guns: they are playing as an investigator, not an action hero. Naturally, this makes for a far tenser, more vulnerable gameplay experience, which facilitates greater horror in turn.
Instead of fighting to rid the world of demons, monsters, or zombies, Alan Rebels’ task is to uncover truth. As such, The Occultist’s gameplay is primarily composed of puzzles, many of which have been teased or hinted at already. It looks like both puzzles and exploration will be driven by various in-game tools, such as a glass object revealing what the naked eye cannot see, and a pendant that can turn back time. With these tools and others, The Occultist hopes to use gameplay to drive home its cosmic horror themes.
‘Can a Blind Person Describe the Light?’— How The Occultist Is Capturing Cosmic Horror
Cosmic horror, also frequently called Lovecraftian horror due to writer H.P. Lovecraft’s influence on the genre, tends to dwell mostly on existential or metaphysical themes. These stories are often less about immediate, physical danger and more about ideas so grand that they inspire madness and guttural, primal fear. For instance, classic cosmic horror story The Call of Cthulhu is about a cult that worships a massive creature whose massive, otherworldly appearance can drive beholders mad. In video games, cosmic horror can be conveyed through a number of unique methods, including toying with the player’s perception. This can be seen in games like Bloodborne, which changes what the player can see based on their Insight level.
It would appear that The Occultist is hoping to make the most of its medium in a similar way. In one of the game’s cinematic trailers, Alan refers to a “constant struggle between good and evil,” and asks, “Can a blind person describe the light?” He goes on to say that humans are limited in their abilities of perception, classifying our species as “blind” to the metaphysical world. It’s only through Alan’s abilities as a paranormal investigator that he can see the true nature of reality. Such concepts are inherently cosmic and eerie.
At the same time, The Occultist is leaning into magic systems similar to those in traditional folklore. For instance, Alan bests a ghostly creature in the reveal trailer by tricking it into seeing its reflection, causing it to explode. This suggests adherence to ritualized magical rules a la those of The Witcher. Combined with the Lovecraftian promise of horrors hiding just below the surface of perception, this kind of formalized magic system could make for quite a compelling fantasy world. Hopefully, this will translate into some novel gameplay systems as well.
