The Occupation
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Top Critic
The Occupation is an intriguing video game with some cool gameplay mechanics, but it's flawed by many issues.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Although imperfect in many ways, I still consider The Occupation to be a totally worthwhile experience and a great display of ambitious game design. The investigative components and political thriller narrative are highly engaging in spite of its clunky packaging.
Top Critic
The main problem with The Occupation is that it hides all the good things (i.e. great concept, strong narrative) under a layer of wrong design decision, bugs, glitches and awkward controls. I had high hopes for this one, but in this state I would not recommend The Occupation to just anyone.
Top Critic
The Occupation is an investigation game that tries to make every second count but is ultimately a missed opportunity.
Top Critic
The Occupation is an investigation game that tries to make every second count but is ultimately a missed opportunity.
Top Critic
An occasionally brilliant immersive sim blighted by bugs and a restrictive save system.
Top Critic
A tense, imaginative thriller that buckles under the weight of its own ambition.
Top Critic
A staggeringly ambitious, gun-free immersive reality detective game set in an alternate 1980s Britain, whose admirable intentions are undermined by technical problems.
Top Critic
If you're willing to push past a large number of technical issues and poor stealth gameplay, there's a fantastic story buried deep in The Occupation's heart
Top Critic
The Occupation is a smart, story-driven stealth adventure, the sort of game that gets under your skin in ways you didn't even realize.
Top Critic
Playing The Occupation is like puzzling over a dense little knot of tangled priorities, information, and pressures. It’s tense to play through, and even more fun to go back and try the process again, armed with information from previous runs.
Top Critic
The Occupation has a premise that is really intriguing in theory. Trying to spy on a powerful entity and taking them to task with your questioning is the kind of experience that can be great in the game, and taking inspiration from current affairs makes it feel much more authentic. It's a shame that various bugs, even when updated to the most recent build, can make the experience feel lacklustre, and at times a frustration to play.
Top Critic
The Occupation is an inventive political thriller that does something new, but is let down by poor AI and some frustrating bugs.
Top Critic
The Occupation is a game of intriguing ideas and sublime atmosphere; the tension of its real-time thrills gives way to a romance with journalistic sleuthing.
Top Critic
The best bit of The Occupation is creeping around and scrabbling through paperwork, and that bit is bloody brilliant.
Top Critic
The Occupation brilliantly blends elaborate levels, breadcrumb-chasing, gotcha journalism, and a politically-charged drama to become one of 2019's most interesting games.
Top Critic
A superb, smart and taut detective thriller lay beneath the stack of technical and design issues that The Occupation has, it's just a shame that, in its current form at least, those shortcomings are at the forefront of the experience.
Top Critic
The Occupation is bold, ambitious, and a bit of a mess. Its bugs and occasionally obtuse storytelling severely detract from the overall experience, and yet it will live longer in the memory than the average game. There's something fascinating here: a real-time thriller that puts genuine political power in the palm of your hands. But it's strangled by its own ambition, and that's as inevitable as it is unfortunate.
Top Critic
Would I recommend The Occupation? Yes. If you like real stealth and a kind of nostalgia and have a good gaming session you can dedicate to the game. It will reward you well. If you are a gamer with not much time, I am not too sure. But I certainly wouldn’t let that put you off giving it a go.
Top Critic
The Occupation tries to present itself as a political thriller emphasizing stealth. Sadly, it has neither the thrills nor the mechanics for both.
