The Occupation Reviews
The Occupation has a politically charged story with a moral quandary you may not be able to answer due to the game's forced stealth.
Despite its issues, The Occupation is thrilling, even with its lack of traditional life threatening situations. Hiding behind chairs to wait for Steve the Security guard to leave after you’ve accidentally set off an alarm, nervously awaiting the full 2 minutes for a safe to open while desperately hoping someone doesn’t walk in on you, hiding under a desk while a file slowly transfers to a disk, waiting just out of view until someone opens a door than attempting to follow them in unseen – The Occupation is full of moment to moment nail biting situations where time is your enemy and your most precious resource.
The Occupation could, should and would be easily a gaming experience to recommend. Alas, the experience is tarnished with not just little, forgettable or mildly acceptable, bugs.
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
An occasionally brilliant immersive sim blighted by bugs and a restrictive save system.
The Occupation is an inventive political thriller that does something new, but is let down by poor AI and some frustrating bugs.
Despite that, if you enjoy uncovering the truth of a mysterious story, and don't mind replaying a game to uncover the full story, you'll want to pick up a copy of The Occupation when it launches on March 5th for PlayStation 4, PC, and Xbox One.
When The Occupation works, it's a thrilling investigative adventure that allows the player freedom to explore and chase leads in a way that feels incredibly exciting. Frustrating controls can be overlooked, but unfortunately, the bugs in the game are incredibly persistent and capable of completely turning a promising experience into one that's too annoying to go on.
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.
A staggeringly ambitious, gun-free immersive reality detective game set in an alternate 1980s Britain, whose admirable intentions are undermined by technical problems.
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.
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.
The Occupation is uneven experiment to create a nonlinear political thriller with unpleasant restrictions and not always clear motives of the main characters. Bugs, terrible interface, problems with choices in the second half of the game and annoying stealth mechanics cause disappointment.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Despite being held back by pesky bugs, The Occupation is nonetheless an enjoyable and immersive game that handles weighty subject matter with aplomb.
The Occupation is an investigation game that tries to make every second count but is ultimately a missed opportunity.
The Occupation is an investigation game that tries to make every second count but is ultimately a missed opportunity.
The Occupation structures itself in an interesting way, sets a unique tone, and toys with some potent topics, but lacks the depth or polish needed to live up to its potential. Like a disappointing newspaper article, you're left with more questions than answers and wishing somebody would do the subject proper justice. The Occupation is, unfortunately, pretty vacant.
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.
The Occupation tries to present itself as a political thriller emphasizing stealth. Sadly, it has neither the thrills nor the mechanics for both.
The Occupation's fierce commitment to immersing the player in its credible world is also the game's undoing.