Phasmophobia

Phasmophobia is an investigative horror game developed and published by British indie game studio, Kinetic Games. The game became available in early access through Steam for Microsoft Windows with virtual reality support in September 2020. The game received a large influx of popularity the following month due to many well-known Twitch streamers and YouTubers playing it, mainly for the Halloween season. As of October 15, 2020, the game was the sixth-most popular game on Twitch. It was the best selling game on Steam globally for several weeks in October to November 2020.

Phasmophobia is a horror investigation survival game played from a first-person perspective. The player works solo or in a group of up to four players to complete a contract in which they must identify the type of ghost haunting the specified site. Players can communicate through voice chat, both locally within a short distance and globally via walkie-talkies. Phasmophobia features speech recognition allowing certain pieces of equipment and even the ghost to hear players speaking and understand key words. Completing objectives and gathering evidence provide a payout; complete as much as possible to level up, unlock maps and difficulties, and earn money.

Players create or join a lobby where preparation for the contracts is done. Phasmophobia gives players the option to customize their appearance by picking between eight different paranormal investigators to distinguish between group members. Located at a whiteboard in the lobby, a contract location and difficulty (Amateur, Intermediate, Professional or Nightmare) is selected. All equipment is purchased at this board and selected to be loaded into the Van from which the group will operate out of upon arriving at the site.

As of June 2021, there are nine sites of various sizes: small, medium, or large. The small maps include four suburban-style houses and two farmhouses, the medium maps are a high school and prison, and the large map is an asylum. Potential future maps located at an apartment building, mansion, sewer, and hospital have been hinted at. In August 2021 an update featured one small type map Willow Street house. An October 2021 update brought a medium sized outside type map named Maple Lodge Campsite, the first map in the game to be primarily set outdoors.

Phasmophobia features twenty-one different ghosts, each of which behaves differently and provides unique clues. The ghost types are Spirit, Wraith, Phantom, Poltergeist, Banshee, Jinn, Mare, Revenant, Shade, Demon, Yurei, Oni, Yokai, Hantu, Myling, Goryo, Onryo, Obake, Raiju, and The Twins. An update in December 2021 introduced The Mimic which imitates other ghost types. Upon arriving at the site, one of these ghost types will be randomly assigned to locate and identify. As players attempt to complete the contract, sanity will drain with certain events and circumstances affecting the rate at which it does so. When sanity is low enough, a ghost will begin to hunt and attempt to kill the players. During the hunting phase, all exit doors are locked so players must outrun and/or hide from the ghost until the end of the hunt.

Players will start in the Van where they will find the equipment they have selected and another whiteboard, the Objective Board, listing the objectives they need to complete as well as the name of the ghost. It also houses the Surveillance Computer, Sanity Monitor, map of the current site, Sound Sensor Screen, and Site Activity Monitor. This set of equipment is permanently located inside the Van and is used to track the status of the players and ghost’s activity. Players who survive and have completed their objectives (or wish to give up) must return to the Van to leave. Players will also have a journal on hand permanently where information about the ghosts, evidence, and photos can be found. Evidence and ghost identification must be marked in the Journal to receive credit.

Basic equipment includes a Spirit box, Ghost Writing book, Photo Camera, EMF Reader, Video Camera, UV Flashlight, and Flashlight. Additional equipment types can be purchased and may be needed to complete the optional objectives. A Ouija Board has a chance of spawning at the site and can be used to speak to the ghost. These tools can be used as a means of communication, investigation, protection and clue gathering.

Players must utilize the various pieces of equipment to identify the three pieces of evidence unique to the type of ghost they are dealing with, and often to complete optional objectives as well. As of August 2021, there are seven possible pieces of ghost evidence: DOTS Projector, EMF Level 5, Fingerprints, Freezing Temperatures, Ghost Orb, Ghost Writing, and Spirit box.

Additional photo evidence can be taken with a Photo Camera to earn extra money and will give points according to the category and distance from which the photo was taken (which is denoted by a star rating). A photo of the ghost will net the most money, but other items that count towards photo evidence include: bones, dead bodies (of teammates), fingerprints, footprints, Ghost Writing book (after being written in), sink full of dirty water, and voodoo dolls.

The game was first seen on March 6, 2020, when its Steam page became live. An announcement trailer was then released three months later, announcing additional VR support and a release date for the early access build. On September 18, 2020, the game was released in early access for $14 After the release, the game received two major updates regarding bug fixes in the following week. Dknighter, the founder and sole member of Kinetic Games, has stated he hopes to release the full game somewhere in 2021. However, until that happens, he plans to keep the game's price the same. During the course of game development after the early access release, one of the main goals for the updates was to improve the ghosts' AI, making them smarter and less predictable, and consequently harder for players to deal with. Kinetic Games plans to release console versions once the game has more content.

Although first releasing around mid-September, the game began to pick up steam around the beginning of October when it was being played by many notable Twitch streamers and YouTubers such as xQc, Jacksepticeye, Sodapoppin and Markiplier.[13][14] This was likely due to the game becoming early access around the beginning of the Halloween season, as well as being similar in popularity to its inspiration P.T.[15] It could also be due to the start of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic causing many people to stay at home.[16] With the influx of players due to the large amount of popular streamers playing the game, hackers became widespread during the later weeks of the game's release, mostly by trying to jumpscare players or spawn an infinite amount of items.[17] One of the more concerning examples of hacking were stream snipers, who changed their player models to a more NSFW one, likely causing said streamers to receive warnings and bans for inappropriate content.[18][19] The devs then began working on updates to solve the problem.[20]

On Twitch, the game grew exponentially and even reached the top 5 most viewed game in mid October, overtaking games such Among Us, Fortnite Battle Royale, FIFA 21, and Genshin Impact. According to online player tracker GitHyp, the game hit a peak of over 86,000 active players around October 10.The game became a Steam top-seller, and by the end of October 18, 2020, was the best selling game of that week, even beating out Fall Guys and pre-orders for Cyberpunk 2077. The game was the highest selling game on Steam for two weeks in a row.

Phasmophobia has received positive reviews from critics. Rich Stanton of PC Gamer called it "the best ghost game ever made", as well as declaring that it was "unlike anything else I've played", and that it "comes up with shit that'll turn you white". Cass Marshall, writing in Polygon, also gave a positive review, describing it as "a nice, cozy kind of horror", and that "once [it] gets rolling, it is brilliant", while also finding that the game had numerous bugs. Jeuxvideo.com described the game as being quite original and imaginative, on top of being creepy. They felt that the maps in the game were well thought out and that the level of progression was well-paced. Whilst the review criticized the game for its animations and certain redundancies, they felt that they would likely be smoothed out with constant updates before the game's release. A review by CBR described the game as "the perfect game for the Halloween season", praising it for its unique jumpscares, as well as for its sound design. The game has been compared to many other horror games of a similar nature, such as Friday the 13th: The Game and Dead by Daylight.

• Won in nomination Best Debut Game in December 10, 2020

• Nominated in VR Game of the Year January 3, 2021