The Occultist

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A cult's abandoned island, a missing father and a pendulum that sees the dead.

Platforms: PC, PlayStation, Xbox
Stores: Steam, GOG
Price: Paid
Rated: Mostly Positive on Steam (283 of 373 reviews positive); 4.2 of 5 from 396 ratings on the PlayStation Store; Metacritic 66 on PS5
Length: about 9 to 12 hours, judging by Steam reviewers' playtime
Players: 1
Controls: WASD to move, mouse to look, pendulum on the mouse buttons; or a controller
Made by: DALOAR
Released: 2026

Get it on Steam PlayStation Store (PS5)Xbox (Series X|S)GOG

What frightens A paranormal investigator searches the abandoned island of Godstone, home until 1950 to a macabre cult of experiments and rituals, for his missing father; with a mystical pendulum he reads and changes the places he explores, and hides from the wrathful spirits and creatures that hunt him in its foggy streets and decaying buildings.
Content: blood, jumpscares.

The Occultist is a first-person horror game from DALOAR, published by Daedalic Entertainment in 2026 for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series. As paranormal investigator Alan Rebels you search the abandoned island of Godstone, once home to a cult of cruel rituals, for your missing father, using a mystical pendulum to solve its puzzles and hiding from the spirits that remain.

About The Occultist

The Occultist is a first-person horror game by the studio DALOAR, published by Daedalic Entertainment and released on April 8, 2026 for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. You play Alan Rebels, a paranormal investigator whose father has vanished after returning to Godstone, the British island where he was born. No one has set foot there since 1950, when the infamous cult that ran it, with its macabre experiments and rituals, came to an end.

Godstone is a foggy island of wooden houses, overgrown graveyards, dark forests and a grand, decaying mansion. Alan carries a mystical pendulum that has gone with him on every case: through it he can read and change his surroundings, and it drives the puzzles, from straightforward ones to riddles that need some knowledge of the occult. Some of the souls that remain on the island can be spoken to; others are wrathful and must be avoided at all cost.

The makers built it around stealth rather than combat. Alan does not fight, so when a spirit, a creature or one of the island's living adversaries hunts him, he hides and sneaks past. Steam players praise the atmosphere of each location and compare it to Conarium, while some find the ghosts less threatening than they hoped and the story uneven.

It suits players who like slower first-person investigation horror with puzzles and hiding, rather than shooting, and runs about ten hours.

How to play The Occultist

Buy The Occultist on Steam, the PlayStation Store or the Xbox store.
Explore Godstone as Alan, reading notes and following the trail of your father.
Use the pendulum to reveal and change things in the world and to solve its puzzles.
When a hostile spirit or creature is near, hide and sneak; Alan cannot fight.
Talk to the calmer souls of the island to learn what the cult did.

Screenshots

The Occultist key art: Alan Rebels holds up a pendulum before a glowing occult circle, beside the game title

The Occultist screenshot: a hunched figure with glowing red eyes crouches at the end of a dark wooden corridor

The Occultist screenshot: Alan holds his pendulum in a decaying grand hall with a large ornate clock and sweeping staircases

The Occultist screenshot: abandoned wooden houses in thick blue-green fog among tall grass

Tips

Use the pendulum everywhere; many puzzle answers are hidden until it shows them.
Watch and listen before crossing open ground, since you cannot fight what hunts you.
Read the documents you find: the occult puzzles draw on what they explain.