Phasmophobia Review – Hunt the ghosts
Catch ghosts with your friends in VR and not in VR!
Let’s get started on this Phasmophobia Review.
Table of Contents
- 1 What is Phasmophobia?
- 2 Who Makes Phasmophobia?
- 3 Which VR Headsets is Phasmophobia On?
- 4 Phasmophobia Tutorial
- 5 How to Play Phasmophobia – A very basic overview
- 6 Phasmophobia Tips and Tricks
- 7 Very scary… until it is not
- 8 Some VR Issues
- 9 Who Will Enjoy Playing Phasmophobia?
- 10 How long is Phasmophobia?
- 11 Can you play Phasmophobia Sitting Down?
- 12 Does Phasmophobia cause motion sickness?
- 13 Final Thoughts On Phasmophobia Review. Is Phasmophobia Worth It?
What is Phasmophobia?
Phasmophobia is a 4 player online co-op investigative horror game. You and your team will enter haunted locations with various ghost hunting equipment. As you use the items you will narrow down which type of ghost is haunting the location.
This game can be played in both VR and non-VR on a regular gaming PC.
Who Makes Phasmophobia?
Which VR Headsets is Phasmophobia On?
Phasmophobia is available on Steam VR.
As mentioned you can play this game without a VR headset and cross-play with your friends who do not have VR.
Phasmophobia Tutorial
There is a tutorial you can access from the main menu.
This tutorial goes through the basic “clue solving” ghost hunting equipment step by step. The ghost in the tutorial is ‘nonviolent’ so it won’t start hunting you. This just gets you familiar with how some of the equipment works.
One of the best parts of Phasmophobia is that much is left up to the player to discover. As you play more games various people will share their knowledge with you about the different ghosts and how to deal with them and all the various pieces of ghost hunting equipment.
How to Play Phasmophobia – A very basic overview
Your entire mission in Phasmophobia is to enter the house with the various pieces of ghost hunting equipment you brought with you and figure out what kind of ghost is haunting it.
Some of these items will help you to figure out where in the location the ghost is mainly located. Some will help you deal with a haunting. Some items will help you gather evidence. Basically clues as to what kind of ghost you are dealing with. Evidence gathering includes:
- D.O.T.S. Projector
- EMF readings that reach level 5
- Ghost Writing – Book
- Fingerprints – UV Light
- Ghost orbs – Video Camera
- Freezing temperatures – Thermometer
- Spirit Box
As you explore the house eventually the ghost will get angry and start to ‘hunt’. Your flashlight will blink on and off and the doors will all lock. You need to hide!
If you don’t hide the ghost will chase you down and kill you. Immediately you will be muted and removed from the group chat until the end of the level, although you will be able to see and hear what your teammates are doing from the ‘ghost world’.
After you identify the ghost in your journal you can end the round, see if you are correct, and receive money for a correct guess and any bonuses from photos you took.
The money will allow you to purchase new equipment for your next ghost hunting experience.
Phasmophobia Tips and Tricks
Here are some Phasmophobia Tips and Tricks
- Each ghost will also have a strength and a weakness like doesn’t like salt or being very fast. Take time to learn about the ghosts in the journal
- The entire time you are in the haunted location your sanity will slowly drop. If you want more ghost events lower your sanity. Want an even faster drop? Use the Ouiji board.
- There is also extra bonus money from each level for photographing anything paranormal like ghost footprints and fingerprints, Ouija boards, voodoo dolls, bones, and dirty water.
- Always select a ghost type before ending the game. Even if it is a guess, you could end up being right!
Very scary… until it is not
The biggest downside of Phasmophobia is that after several hours of gameplay, like all horror experiences, you will start to get used to it.
You will get a system in place and everyone will know exactly what to do and where to go. There may still be a few spooky moments but it becomes more of a grind. You will also have more than enough money to buy everything you could ever want many times.
Until you find a random new person to play with.
Then you get the wonderful experience of seeing a person deal with everything for the first time again. It is great to make this new person be the one who stays in the room and talks to the ghost while everyone else waits in the van for example. You will be sure to get lots of laughs.
Some VR Issues
This game became very popular on NON-VR regular PC use. The small dev team is essentially working on two versions of the game at the same time VR and Regular PC. There are many notable bugs, issues, and problems that come up.
- The VR controls in Phasmophobia take some getting used to.
- You cant adjust your height in VR. If you drop something you may not be able to pick it up as the floor is beneath your real floor
- Microphones randomly shutting off for team players or not working at the start of the game
- You will manually place your items on your belt. If you happen to miss the belt your items may drop through the floor and disappear.
- Many users complain of a long load screen that doesn’t actually show a loading screen but instead shows the Steam VR background.
- The hands are stiff and don’t really match VR hand movement too great. ( You cant point or make a fist either)
- Various stuttering, ghosting, clipping, and not loading in at various points in VR and Virtual Desktop – with some reporting it is completely unusable in VR.
- Some maps are better optimized than others.
Overall Phasmophobia is still in early access and the developers are still very much working on the game. Depending on which VR headset you are on you may have a better experience. If VR ends up not working for you, you can still play it on PC but keep some of these in mind.
Phasmophobia is not yet rated as it is still in early access, but I imagine it would be at M for Mature. There is violence, blood and gore, and intense horror situations.
This is a great game to play with your friend both in VR and out. There are very few cross-play games like this. People who are looking for an intense co-op horror experience will enjoy Phasmophobia.
What Games are similar to Phasmophobia?
Phasmophobia is similar to 4 player co-op games like Dead By Daylight, Left 4 Dead, or Back 4 Blood. A similar VR Game would be Surv1v3 and Forewarned
How long is Phasmophobia?
Playtime varies greatly depending on the size of the map you pick, how experienced the people you are playing with are, and just how lucky you are.
On average one round of Phasmophobia is 10-35 minutes.
Can you play Phasmophobia Sitting Down?
Yes! Phasmophobia can be played sitting down. You may have some issues taking items off your belt though.
You can also play it standing. You do not need a large play space or room movement.
Does Phasmophobia cause motion sickness?
Overall you will move quite slowly. This is because… well a ghost is chasing you and if you could just sprint out of there it would kind of ruin the game. You have a brief sprint option but it doesn’t last long and you will soon hear your character breathing heavy.
Phasmophobia may cause motion sickness issues so use the various movement customization options.
Final Thoughts On Phasmophobia Review. Is Phasmophobia Worth It?
Phasmophobia is totally worth it. VR version or not.