The Occupation |OT| First-Person, Fixed-Time, Immersive Sim

[Dancrane212]

Platform(s): PC, PS4, Xbox One
Release Date: March 5th
Genre: Immersive Sim
Price: $29.99 USD
Player(s): 1
Format: Digital/Physical
Developer: White Paper Games
Publisher: Humble Bundle

FAQ

What is this game?
"The Occupation is a first-person, fixed-time, immersive sim and investigative thriller set in North West England on October 24, 1987. You play as a journalist in a detailed, systems-driven world where people react to your actions, and time is your biggest enemy. An explosion has triggered a controversial act, which threatens to erode civil liberties of the population, to be rushed into place."

What does "fixed-time" mean in the context of this game?
The Occupation will have moments where you are given a set amount of actual "real" time to explore an environment looking for as many clues as you can to help with your investigation.

How long is it?
Around 5 to 6 hours going off reviews but the game also features multiple endings depending on choices you make with the information you gather.

Reviews have been critical of the stability of the game. Has there been any comments from the devs about patches?
Yes. The developers of the game mentioned they will be working to "support over the next few weeks at full pace!" with AI issues singled out as a top target for them.

Enhancements on PS4 Pro and Xbox One X?
Yes. The game will run at a 4k resolution on both platforms.

https://wccftech.com/the-occupation-run-4k-ps4pro-xb1x/

Switch?
"We'd love to release The Occupation on Switch. Lots of people have been asking for it and a lot of our developer friends have experienced success on the platform so it would be great fun to do."

https://wccftech.com/the-occupation-run-4k-ps4pro-xb1x/

Media

Reviews
Review Thread

Metacritic - 66

Game Informer - 6.75/10
The bleak resolution that I reached, which took me to task for my failure to uncover all the clues, was a powerful conclusion to a story. I just wish it wasn't such a chore to get to that point. The Occupation's technical issues and consistent dullness will likely keep me from playing through again to see just how many consequences exist for your failures and successes, and that's a shame.

Wccftech - 5.5/10
The Occupation takes around five or six hours to complete, and there is an incentive to play through again as there are multiple endings and it's almost impossible to dig up all the clues the first time around. Much like a real journalist, your determination to stick to it will depend on your tolerance for aggravation and desire to know the full truth.

PC Gamer - 67
Usually, I'd heartily recommend any game I like enough to replay, but The Occupation is basically broken in its current form. Despite its brilliant levels, you shouldn't consider buying it unless you can put up with losing an hour of progress without warning.

Links
Steam
Xbox One
PS4
White Paper Games Twitter​

 

[Ahti]

Looks interesting, maybe I`ll give it a try.
btw.: Thanks for the OT!

 

[Dancrane212]

Looks interesting, maybe I`ll give it a try.

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I'm hopeful the game will be at least a "Get Even" style of experience where the issues are outweighed by the overall design of the title.

 

[DukeBobby]

Nice OT. Enjoying the game so far but it is quite buggy.

 

[Dancrane212]

Nice OT. Enjoying the game so far but it is quite buggy.

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Hopefully things will be stabilized soon.

 

[blacklotus]

29,99€. Was hoping it would be 24,99€ tops.

 

[Deleted member 21255]

29,99€. Was hoping it would be 24,99€ tops.

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Base.com has it for 21:

https://www.base.com/fsearch.htm?search=the+occupation

 

[blacklotus]

Base.com has it for 21:

https://www.base.com/fsearch.htm?search=the+occupation

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PC?

 

[Deleted member 21255]

PC?

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PS4 and Xbox.

 

[blacklotus]

PS4 and Xbox.

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:-(

 

[Juan29.Zapata]

Thank you for the OT, Dancrane212!

From what I read from some reviews is that this game is only for a certain kind of people (certainly not those looking for action) and the main cons are the bugs, for which some will have fix in a day 1 patch.

Anyone on PS4 find it too glitchy or something? Would love to play this soon.

 

[Dancrane212]

Thank you for the OT, Dancrane212!

From what I read from some reviews is that this game is only for a certain kind of people (certainly not those looking for action) and the main cons are the bugs, for which some will have fix in a day 1 patch.

Anyone on PS4 find it too glitchy or something? Would love to play this soon.

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DukeBobby played it over in the review thread.

Played the prologue section on PS4 Pro. Relatively smooth so far with no bugs, although I'm aware that most of the problems are during the timed sections.

There's a 1.02 patch with "multiple AI fixes" so hopefully it's slightly less broken at least.

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Scratch that, the game didn't load after a cutscene, so I had to reboot. Didn't lose any progress, thankfully.

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[Dancrane212]

PC patch possibility coming tomorrow.

Hey Sean, thanks for letting us know. I just pinged our programmer and will add it to the repro list for tomorrow. MAY not make it in to tomorrow's hopeful PC patch but will of course be sure to get it in asap. Thankfully PC is a faster process than console for us.

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[Twinsen64]

So, with the bugs how is this? I've had my eye on this for awhile now.

 

[matrix-cat]

Ctrl C and V-ing my post from the review thread:

I just played up to the start of the second timed level on XB1X, and I think I'm going to wait for a patch before I go any further. Pretty much all the UI stuff is totally broken on X; any time you inspect a file or computer or anything (even your own dossier that acts as your inventory/journal menu), the UI prompts don't match up with their actual location on screen. Keying in a code on a safe or a phone's number pad, for example, the button prompt is way off to the right of where the actual numbers are on screen. I had one dialogue moment where I had to hold my cursor way above the actual dialogue option I wanted to select, so for the top option I literally had to move the cursor off the top of the screen where I couldn't see it any more.

This game seems so fucking cool, though. It's a low-key immersive sim, with all the crawling through vents, reading e-mails and picking up notes with safe codes on them you could want, just without actually killing any guys. You get one real-time hour to explore an office building and find as much evidence as you can for ammunition to use in an interview with one of the employees there, and so far it's been really ambitious. It desperately needs a better way of keeping track of all the information you collect, though. Hopefully they'll patch the inventory UI stuff quickly, but even then they've made some odd choices in how information and inventory items are handled. There's no visible inventory screen for things like cassette tapes or ID cards; you only get to know what you're carrying when you physically go to a tape player or card scanner. There's a lot of stuff like having to go to one specific computer that has a text log of an answering machine on it, needing a blank floppy disk to make a copy of it, having to take that disk to another computer connected to a printer, but there's no map screen to keep track of where those things are and no way to see if you have a blank disk before you get there.

Hopefully they patch it soon, because I think there's a really excellent game in here but right now it's just too janky to really recommend.

EDIT - Oh, and I think PC is the way to go here, because they've made the unfortunate decision of having X (on Xbox) be the 'interact' button in a first-person game, which means you spend the whole game awkwardly moving your thumb between the right stick and the X button to interact with things. In a game where both RB and LB are un-used. It's poorly thought out stuff like this that make the game far clumsier to play than it has to be.

 

[Fat4all]

I think I might buy this now but wait a few weeks to play it.

It's a game that's really really up my alley, but I'd like for them to get a few more fixes down first before playing.

 

[KnivesAndCoins]

I wonder, techical issues apart, how good the actual experience is?

 

[Deleted member 11976]

Played through the first chapter on PS4 and had a really good time with it. Super intrigued by the story that's unfurling. I didn't have any technical issues but that's not to say there aren't any. I might double-dip and get it on PC since some of the tactile interactions available on a single object are grouped quite close together, meaning it'll probably be more comfortable with mouselook as opposed to an analog stick on a gamepad.

Speaking as someone who planted PREY firmly as my GOTY in 2017, I think I'm going to enjoy the hell out of this. If you enjoy immersive sims I really can't recommend this enough. This seems like a really fresh take on the genre with some very bold, commited design choices.

 

[DukeBobby]

Played through the first timed section last night. I didn't encounter certain bugs like objects disappearing or the main character falling through the environment, but man, Steve the security guard might have the most broken AI I've ever seen. I reloaded my checkpoint a few times, but he got stuck in the environment at some point every single time. One time, he was stood in a corner facing away, allowing me to get on with my stealthy shenanigans completely unnoticed for the whole hour lol.

 

[matrix-cat]

OK, no, I'm done. Just lost half an hour's worth of progress in the second main level after climbing a ladder and falling through the bottom of the world. This is after my Dossier menu glitched out and stopped displaying the page that collects all of the passwords and safe codes I'd picked up throughout the level. I could still pick them up and add them to my 'inventory', but I had no way of displaying them, and because I'd picked them up they were removed from the game world and I couldn't even go back and look at them.

I really respect what they're trying to do with this game, and I sympathise with the plight of a really small developer not having the resources to test their games, but they shouldn't have released the game in this state. A game where there's no manual saving in a state this buggy is just a recipe for disaster. I might check back in with it on PC down the line.

Just going by our tiny sample size here, it seems like you guys playing the PS4 version are seeing fewer bugs? I'm on Xbox and it's been unacceptably janky, so maybe PS4 is a safer bet for now if you have the option?

 

[DukeBobby]

OK, no, I'm done. Just lost half an hour's worth of progress in the second main level after climbing a ladder and falling through the bottom of the world. This is after my Dossier menu glitched out and stopped displaying the page that collects all of the passwords and safe codes I'd picked up throughout the level. I could still pick them up and add them to my 'inventory', but I had no way of displaying them, and because I'd picked them up they were removed from the game world and I couldn't even go back and look at them.

I really respect what they're trying to do with this game, and I sympathise with the plight of a really small developer not having the resources to test their games, but they shouldn't have released the game in this state. A game where there's no manual saving in a state this buggy is just a recipe for disaster. I might check back in with it on PC down the line.

Just going by our tiny sample size here, it seems like you guys playing the PS4 version are seeing fewer bugs? I'm on Xbox and it's been unacceptably janky, so maybe PS4 is a safer bet for now if you have the option?

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PS4 Pro here. Aside from Steve being completely broken, I've had no game breaking issues as of yet.

 

[Iztok]

I think it's depressing we've grown this accustomed to buggy releases :\
It still bothers me a lot.

Makes me feel like less than buying a videogame and more like dealing with software contractor (occupational hazard).

 

[matrix-cat]

PS4 Pro here. Aside from Steve being completely broken, I've had no game breaking issues as of yet.

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Just having a quick look at various pre-release promotional videos on Youtube it seems like they're all from either the PC or the PS4 versions, so maybe the XB1 version didn't get as much attention or something.

 

[DukeBobby]

Fucking Steve. When he's not falling through the floor, he's hunting me down like the Xenomorph in Alien Isolation.

 

[CampFreddie]

The game sounds great, but I think I'll wait for patches and price drops.
The long times between save points and lack of manual saves sounds tough for what seems to be a pure stealth game.

 

[More_Badass]

Played through the first chapter on PS4 and had a really good time with it. Super intrigued by the story that's unfurling. I didn't have any technical issues but that's not to say there aren't any. I might double-dip and get it on PC since some of the tactile interactions available on a single object are grouped quite close together, meaning it'll probably be more comfortable with mouselook as opposed to an analog stick on a gamepad.

Speaking as someone who planted PREY firmly as my GOTY in 2017, I think I'm going to enjoy the hell out of this. If you enjoy immersive sims I really can't recommend this enough. This seems like a really fresh take on the genre with some very bold, commited design choices.

Click to shrink...

Oh definitely, it's been one of my anticipated game since it was revealed. I just want to wait for some patches/fixes first

 

[Dancrane212]

.

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Yikes. Hopefully the UI issues are quickly resolved.

 

[Dancrane212]

Upcoming stream with the developers.

http://gamasutra.com/view/news/338043/Chat_with_the_developers_behind_The_Occupation_at_1PM_ET.php

This week, UK developer White Paper Games is releasing The Occupation, an investigative thriller that plays like Deus Ex but tests players with a fixed clock as they solve their investigation. It's a really unique game that got featured in Epic's GDC booth last year, and today on the GDC Twitch channel, the developers will be swinging by for a chat during a livestream of their game.

If you're a fan of immersive sim-style games (think Deus Ex, Dishonored), and games built on investigation mechanics, you should definitely swing by and ask questions for the developers. If you're not, swing by and ask questions anyway!

Click to shrink...

 

[Sloane]

Bought it but my PC is still in a moving box, will hopefully be able to play it over the weekend. Bugs sound disappointing but not unexpected for that kind of game.

 

[Messofanego]

Playing it now. Shame to hear about the bugs. It's been a while since I've played a first person stealth game.

 

[DukeBobby]

Completely stumped by one of the leads in the Metacentre.

Spoiler

It's instructing me to find a backup disk in the glove compartment of a car but it's not there, just a letter that gives me little indication of what to do next.

Tried looking online for help but there's like 4 people in the world playing it.

Edit: Lol, it's not even required for the "Complete All Leads" trophy. Maybe it's something they left in the game by accident.

 

[EvilBoris]

I'm just getting a full 6GB patch for this on Xbox now, so maybe they've already solved the issues.

I was really enjoying what I had played so far, really does remind me of dishonored from an atmosphere point of view. Obviously Aesthetically it is pretty different.

 

[SunBroDave]

Wait, this is an immersive sim? I feel obligated to give this a try, but maybe I'll wait a few weeks for some more patches to drop.

 

[EvilBoris]

Wait, this is an immersive sim? I feel obligated to give this a try, but maybe I'll wait a few weeks for some more patches to drop.

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Yeah, you can pick up most things and interact with random stuff. Somewhere between Gone Home and Dishonored.

 

[SunBroDave]

Yeah, you can pick up most things and interact with random stuff. Somewhere between Gone Home and Dishonored.

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The Dishonored series is like top 10 for me of all time, so if this is anything like that, I'm interested. How open are the levels? Are there multiple paths through a given area?

 

[EvilBoris]

The Dishonored series is like top 10 for me of all time, so if this is anything like that, I'm interested. How open are the levels? Are there multiple paths through a given area?

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Dishonored is in my top 10 too. It doesn't play as a stealth game for the most part, you spend most of your time in real world environments just interacting with items and trying to find clues to solve the mystery of the game. There are little stealth bits, but it doesn't appear to be a big part of the game.

 

[Juan29.Zapata]

DukeBobby played it over in the review thread.

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Thank you, Dan.

And great to see some nice impressions on the story. Can't wait to play this, hopefully with less glitches in a couple of weeks.

 

[Twinsen64]

The game sounds great, but I think I'll wait for patches and price drops.
The long times between save points and lack of manual saves sounds tough for what seems to be a pure stealth game.

Click to shrink...

Ahh yeh, I'm time poor but when I play I go into every area I can and explore fully, maybe played for 45 minutes last night, jump on today and I'm right back at the start.
What a bizarre choice, the save point as well as the checkpoints should also be when you exit the game? I don't think I can play this in little bursts as I wanted to.

 

[Blade30]

Man that sounds disappointing with the state of the game considering how good the impression of the game is, why didn't they postpone the release date and polish the game up more?
I'll wait for some patches and see how it's faring then.

 

[Dancrane212]

Upcoming stream with the developers.

http://gamasutra.com/view/news/338043/Chat_with_the_developers_behind_The_Occupation_at_1PM_ET.php

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VOD

 

[Dancrane212]

Steve is getting nerfed in the newest update.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...FkMsEZlJbGK1czUc-9NiIEsEc/edit#gid=2057585662

OK, it's time to talk about Steve...
PC just got a patch with PS4 & XB1 to follow!!!
Fixes include:
- Steve (& other characters) warping through walls
- Steve's presence being too strong in The Bowman Building
- Cursor being offset in 4k

We hope these fixes address any frustration we've read about or watched over the last few days. Creating The Occupation has been a massive achievement for our team & if you've been holding off on starting your investigation until the weekend, please do let us know what you think!

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[DukeBobby]

On my second playthrough and I've only just realised you can press L1 to put your briefcase down on the floor and look through it lol.

 

[Juan29.Zapata]

They are doing these fixes pretty quick! Nice.

 

[Dancrane212]

I don't know where I got it in my head that this was only physically released in PAL territories. Just saw a copy at my local store, updated the OP to reflect that.

 

[mattiewheels]

This seems like the kind of game I'm willing allow a lot of leeway, a really small team doing something novel. I kept falling through the floor in the Painscreek Killings but I was along for the ride and I knew how small the team was.

Can anyone say if this game veers way more towards the methodical and you're not constantly put in 'gamey' situations? I love immersive games that let you exist in an environment, and I think I can handle the time limit stuff.

 

[Deleted member 11976]

Finished my first playthrough tonight. Was so hooked that I basically couldn't put it down from the point I started playing as Harvey Miller and straight through until the end.

I messed up pretty badly in certain key investigations but I'm fine with it since I really liked how there wasn't any manual saving and this made me live with the consequences. I got the bad ending but I'm pretty sure I'll go back in for another run to get the good ending, especially since the game only runs about 5ish hours.

 

[Dancrane212]

Trueachievements review touches on the current state of the game (on Xbox at least) after the first patch.

https://www.trueachievements.com/n36801/the-occupation-review

The exception to all of this glowing praise is the game's bugs. It should be noted that my review time with the game came after one patch, so my experience was actually better than what you may read elsewhere. Regardless, I still had my fair share of issues. NPC behavior was regularly an issue, with security guards sometimes hovering in my general area for far too long in a game that demands you use your time wisely. Other times they'd collide with each other when my behavior took them off their usual routes. Some Telltale-like stuttering appeared at times too, and I even had a quest item disappear from my hand's once, demanding a restart. I was fortunate to be early into the level, because the 60-minute investigations can't be saved in the middle. While the game is already much improved from what I heard from others, it still needs more work before I can consider it a game everyone should consider playing.

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[Siresly]

I will absolutely be getting this once it's been sufficiently polished. Or hell, maybe I'll get it now and play it later. When the developer seems keen to smush bugs and the game itself is intriguing and novel, I can overlook its current kind of WIP status.

 

[flyinj]

I'm completely confused on how I am supposed to approach this game.

I'm in the first chapter, and I have an hour to kill before my meeting, and I'm supposed to break into someone's office.

There is so much to do. Am I just supposed to do as much as possible, then I'm locked into moving forward? Do I get a chance to try the hour again if I don't succeed? There is so much stuff to read and interact with, I feel like I am screwing myself over by doing any exploration whatsoever.

On top of that there are all these audio logs to listen to. Why would I ever sit there and listen to an audio log if it means I am wasting 5 minutes of my extremely limited time before the meeting?

I must be missing something here?

 

[More_Badass]

I'm completely confused on how I am supposed to approach this game.

I'm in the first chapter, and I have an hour to kill before my meeting, and I'm supposed to break into someone's office.

There is so much to do. Am I just supposed to do as much as possible, then I'm locked into moving forward? Do I get a chance to try the hour again if I don't succeed? There is so much stuff to read and interact with, I feel like I am screwing myself over by doing any exploration whatsoever.

On top of that there are all these audio logs to listen to. Why would I ever sit there and listen to an audio log if it means I am wasting 5 minutes of my extremely limited time before the meeting?

I must be missing something here?

Click to shrink...

Time is a resource in this, so yes, risking the time of listening to an audio log for a crucial clue or passcode or alternate options is part of the challenge. Everything you do takes time, and you only have limited time