Phasmophobia Is Fantastic Fun With Friends
For the third time in an hour I moved through a suburban house with two other friends searching for a possible location for something that had caused the original inhabitants to leave in a rushed manner. Each of us carried some equipment meant to help us locate where spectral beings were. The entire house creaked with shifting floorboards and the occasional noise of wind rattling the glass windows. One member of the team called out that temps were dropping into the 40s and 30s in the bedroom and we began setting up cameras in the room while sticking motion sensors at the entrance. A member of the team noted a coffee cup had been thrown at them as the EMF reader pinged a level 4. “It’s showing itself…” someone on the team muttered on the open mic before the fourth member of our team who remained in the van keyed the walkie talkie and told us that the camera picked up small traces of ghost orbs on the screen.
Phasmophobia is an indie early access game on Steam that is being developed by Kinetic Games. It is listed as a psychological horror co-op game with up to four players and cross play with VR. The best possible way I could explain the concept of the game would be to ask the reader to picture the show Ghost Hunters and then factor in that the ghosts being investigated are actually real and have an awful habit of trying to kill you and your teammates.
Currently there are 12 different ghost types in the game and you and your team must investigate a location with some scant information at the beginning and then go through the location and attempt to find the ghost room that the spirit anchors itself in. Your team then attempts to gather three pieces of evidence that will narrow down the type and once you have the evidence you can identify the ghost type and exit the level, or attempt to do additional but optional objectives that are randomized but might include getting the ghost to walk through salt or using a crucifix to stop it from hunting. Each successful ghost discovery leads to a payout of cash and XP to level yourself up to unlock more sophisticated equipment which include parabolic microphones, head-mounted cameras and sensors that connect to the observation van and allow you to track movement.
A round of Phasmophobia begins in a setup room where hunters can pick their equipment for the room and the location they will begin to hunt in before starting the mission and loading into the map location. From there the objectives show up on the white board within the equipment/observation van and the hunters can open the van and begin the search. Each mission has a rating from amateur to professional which increases not only the difficulty of the ghost but also alters its behavior. In amateur, the setup phase begins at five minutes and gives the team of hunters that much time to find the ghost room and place equipment before it hunts. In intermediate the team of hunters has two minutes to find the room and finally in professional the hunter has zero setup time and the ghost can begin its hunts as soon as the hunters begin. One of the most interesting things about the game is that the ghost listens to the mics of the players and can interact with them in different ways like via the ghost box (a channel scanner that reads frequencies) or in more passive ways like listening to the players microphones and reacting to things that are said including the mentioning of its own randomized name.
Each ghost type has its own strengths and weaknesses that help with how best to avoid it but not figuring out the type. The Banshee, for example, hunts one player at a time within the map and will spend all its time on that one player unless they have exited the building or have been already killed. It’s relentless in its pursuit of the player it’s targeted and will even ignore other players. Meanwhile it has a weakness to the crucifix more so than any other ghost and the range of the power of the crucifix is increased to five meters rather than three meters, as with the other ghosts. Alternatively the Demon is the most aggressive ghost in the game and loves to hunt numerous times and its only weakness is using the ouija board (if it spawns some place) to ask it successful questions to locate it while not lowering your sanity. Sanity is another mechanism in the game that the hunters must manage, as the lower the sanity the higher the chance for ghosts to initiate hunts and target them. The drop in sanity can be temporarily offset by taking sanity pills, which increase sanity in the player who takes them but doesn’t prevent a drop in sanity.
Phasmophobia is highly addictive especially with friends and I’ve had such an amazing time playing it with them. I give the game a four out of five simply because it continues to be in early access with a continued but active development cycle. More maps, more equipment and game mechanics are planned for the future. I’m definitely looking forward to playing it more and I highly recommend the game to anyone reading this. Phasmophobia costs $13.99 on Steam for early access.
