Phasmophobia Review

Player(s): 1-4
Extra Features: Online Co-op (2-4)

Phasmophobia is a 4-player online co-op horror game developed and published by Kinetic Games. You play as one of four ghost detectives and are challenged to go into a residence and find proof of a haunting. I play very little online co-op games so I know little in the way of comparison to other types of games of this genre. Along with the co-op mode, there is also a single player mode. Phasmophobia is highly immersive and addicting no matter how you play it.

The game has no story whatsoever. The entire opening menu is playable, so you get to walk around while choosing your options and settings. The game has a very nice tutorial that walks you through the ins and outs of its gameplay. It walks you through each individual device and how to use it. It also takes you on a short hunt to see how to deal with ghosts once they attack.

Once you pick your difficulty and your team decides on which mission to play the run starts. At the beginning of each run, your team starts out in the back of a truck container (your headquarters) beside the building that you’ll be investigating. While inside the headquarters, you can take equipment from the side wall to assist in your investigations. Each team member can only hold three gadgets. Not all team members have to enter the building – some of your team can stay in the headquarters area and help the others that go inside with navigation. The headquarters has a screen that shows a map of the building. It also shows the status of each team member. Sanity is a big stat to keep your eyes on.

Each mission has a certain number of objectives that must be met in order to complete the mission. There are also daily and weekly objectives that will reward you with extra money upon completion. Money is basically experience that allows players to level up. The main objective of each run is to identify the ghost based on what you can find with your gadgets. The EMF reader can pick up paranormal activity and this can go up to level 5. An objective may be for your team to get a level 5 reading off your EMF. Another objective is to witness a ghostly haunting, such as a ghost tossing an object or a ghost suddenly appearing.

Once you have enough clues (based on your gadgets), you can go to your journal and checklist every clue that you have found, such as a cold temperature in a certain room, level 5 EMF reading, a ghost writes down something on a pad, or maybe a ghost answers you through a walkie. If you can checklist enough items truthfully, the list will start to narrow down and you’ll eventually be able to point out the type of ghost that you’re dealing with.

The game gives you a certain amount of time to place everything and start your investigation before things can go bad (the timer is displayed in the headquarters area). Once that timer goes all the way down, the ghost can start attacking your team (the “hunt” begins). If you know the type of ghost that you’re dealing with (found through your investigation), it can make it easier to deal with the ghost. If you don’t, you better be quick to respond when it appears. The only defense you have is to hide once the ghost appears. It will chase you and you must hide to make it go away. If you still haven’t completed your investigation, you must concentrate on completing it while the ghost tries to kill you. The moment a hunt begins is when the game can get truly terrifying.

I play all types of horror games. I’m very used to jump scares and eventually get used to the type of scares that a game has to offer. With Phasmophobia, I never truly know what to expect. Surprisingly, this game does not really jump scare you. Whenever ghosts start a “hunt” on you, they materialize somewhere near you and then chase after you. They teleport while chasing you. You can hear them breathing and the footsteps of them as they give chase. If you don’t find a good place to hide very soon during the chase, they will instantly kill you. You get treated to a death animation then eventually have an out of body experience where you can see the ghost and then see your dead body below.

The overall look of this game is pretty simple but you can tell the developers went the extra mile with the console release at times. I very seldom see a console game that brings over particle effects (dust in the air, etc) from the PC version but this one does on Xbox. It runs at a very smooth framerate overall. The lighting is pretty good, especially with the gadget effects, such as the different flashlights. The game is quiet for the most part. It’s quiet so you can hear the hauntings. Ghosts might shove an object off a desk near you. They might open and close doors, turn off lights or make lights flicker. All of this carries noise. The ghosts’ breathing when they give chase can be truly horrific.

As already mentioned, beside the 4-player co-op mode, the game has a single player mode also. The single player is basically just co-op runs with only one player (you). You must do EVERYTHING that a 4-player group must do to complete a run. Single player can get extremely hard because of this. You are the one that does the investigation and the one that must stay inside and run from the ghost when it starts a hunt. Missions will often have an objective where you must lower your sanity to a very low level or successfully hide from a ghost once it starts a hunt so you’ll have to meet each ghost per run more than likely. Single player is actually way scarier than the usual co-op game because of all this. It may be hard, but you’ll get even more of a full horror experience in single player.

Phasmophobia is one of few games that gives me a sense of dread when starting each run and I love it for that. Very few games make me feel this uneasy. It’s amazing that this game is still in its “preview” run on both Xbox and PC. The developers must set their sights very high since the game feels quite finished overall. It would be nice if they would add some sort of story. That’s about my only nitpick with this title. If you’re into horror games, be sure to give this game a try. It’s more of an online co-op game, but even the single player is fun to mess around with. The game is so very rewarding once you start to get adjusted to it.

The Good:
+ Overall graphics are good for a console version of a PC game
+ Addicting gameplay with many gadgets to choose from
+ Overall immersive game
+ Scary without resorting to cheap jump scares

The Bad:
- Menu navigation feels a bit complicated in some areas
- Would be nice if the game had a story