Release Notes for The Occultist

The Occultist - V.1.0.2.6

Mansion Painting Room: Relocated the canvases within the room to prevent crashes and eliminate confusion regarding the purpose of free painting.
Main Menu Stability: Fixed a crash that could occur when returning to the Main Menu immediately after picking up items.
Lighthouse Puzzle: Resolved specific crashes triggered by failing the Pressure Puzzle in the Lighthouse.
Inventory & QTEs: Fixed a potential crash caused by opening the Inventory right before a Quick Time Event (QTE) triggered.

Diary & Achievements:
- Fixed an issue that either prevented the "Diary Investigation" Achievement from unlocking or caused it to trigger prematurely.
- Fixed a bug that prevented players from opening the Diary twice in a row.
- Resolved a bug that could lock the "Read" action within the Diary.
Controls & Settings: Corrected the Crow's behavior when using the Invert X Look and Invert Y Look settings from the Options Menu.
Save State Consistency: The status of items in the Barn is now correctly saved at checkpoints after cutting Joseph’s rope.
Sequence Breaking Prevention:
- Soft-locking out of various puzzles is now blocked once they are completed, ensuring players always receive their reward items.
- The Pause Menu is now disabled during certain cinematics to prevent progression glitches.
- Disabled user input during the final cinematic to prevent overlapping dialogue with Alan's lines during the Credits.
Credit Sequence: Fixed a potential bug that spawned multiple boats at the end of the Credits, or caused the boat Alan pushes to pop in.

Boss Encounters:
- Modified a boss's attack animation to prevent them from clipping out of their designated NavMesh.
- Added extra collision boxes during a specific boss encounter to prevent the enemy from getting stuck.
- Fixed a boss's aiming logic so they accurately target the player during battle.
- Added collisions to prevent the player from slipping behind the enemy during the final fight phase.
General AI:
- Resolved multiple bugs where various AI entities either failed to spawn or fell through the map geometry.

Lighting & Shadow Optimization: Adjusted lights, shadows, and PLAs in specific zones to significantly improve overall performance.
Particle Optimization: Removed collisions from falling leaves in the forest area to boost framerates.
Visual Cleanup: Removed the PLA from the lions visible via Vera Visio in the Catacombs.

Quality of Life: Enhanced door behavior to prevent the player from getting trapped or pushed by doors closing dynamically.
Audio & Visual Feedback: Added distinct captions and sound effects when attempting to use an incorrect item across several locations in the game.
Puzzle Animations: Fixed an issue with the Whitney Codex puzzle where the completion animation could mistakenly play multiple times.
Visual Glitches: Fixed a visual artifact that occurred if Alan was hit while actively using Tempus Fugit.
Collision Adjustments:
- Added collisions for the Crow to prevent issues when picking up the Yellow Ticket from the Carousel.
- Adjusted the placement of benches at the Mansion entrance to prevent players from getting physically stuck.
Localization: Corrected and polished several text lines and subtitles.

Resolved a stability issue when pausing the game while using the pendulum's third ability.
Fixed an issue where achievement components would fail to respawn after changing zones.
Fixed a bug where enemies could occasionally spawn through the floor geometry.
Adjusted QTE input windows to ensure players have sufficient time to react before failing.
Improved the interaction system when picking up items located inside drawers.
Fixed a crash that occurred in the Orphange when a puzzle was saved with an incorrect item placed.

Enhanced the painting system mechanics within the Hospital area for better consistency.
Improved overall camera and input stability during high-intensity combat situations.
Refined AI navigation logic to prevent clipping issues in various environments.

Fixed the issue where controller users could temporarily lose character control after taking damage.
Resolved the inconsistent behavior of the rat swarm during the final encounter.
behavior of the rat swarm during the final encounter.

Puzzle Optimization: Adjusted the speed of puzzle mechanics for better consistency.
Quest Rewards: Fixed an issue where a reward item would remain floating after completing a quest.
- Solved an issue where some quest items were not granted after finishing its quest.
Environment Clarity: Removed redundant dressing props to improve visual clarity in specific puzzle areas.
Collectible Accessibility: Refined collision boxes to make certain collectibles easier to reach.
Enemy Spawners: Adjusted enemy spawn points and logic for improved balancing and bug fixing.
- Solved an issue where the doesn't spawn after player's death.
- Solved an issue where some were duplicated after player's death.
QTE Balancing: Adjusted the difficulty of Quick Time Events for a fairer experience.

System Stability: Improved overall stability of the painting system.
Optimization: Reduced the size of unnecessary textures to improve memory usage.
Resolution Support (Experimental): Added support for new resolutions: 7680x4320 (8K, 16:9), 3840x1600 (UltraWide 4K, 21:9), and 5120x2160 (UltraWide 5K, 21:9).

Graphics: Resolved texture issues on the hospital exterior.
Character Visuals: Fixed visible texture seams on Alan’s hand and improve overall texture resolution.
Localization: Corrected several typos and errors in game captions.
Audio: Added music to certain areas to improve atmosphere and narrative impact (kept intentionally vague to avoid spoilers).

We are aware of the following issues and are actively working on fixes:

Controller Input: In some combat situations, players using a controller may temporarily lose control after taking damage.
Final Battle: Rat behavior during the final encounter may not function as intended in certain cases.