Phasmophobia is a paranormal horror game made and released by a small game company called Kinetic Games, which is based in Southampton, England. The game was first available for Microsoft Windows with virtual reality support in September 2020. In the game, one to four players act as ghost hunters who must identify the type of ghost haunting a specific location and complete other tasks.

Phasmophobia became popular when many Twitch streamers and YouTubers played it in October 2020. It was the sixth most popular game on Twitch that month and the top-selling game on Steam globally for several weeks from October to November 2020. Critics gave the game positive reviews, praising its creativity. As of April 2026, Phasmophobia is the 50th best-selling video game.

Gameplay

Phasmophobia is a horror investigation survival game played from a first-person perspective. Players work alone or with up to three others to complete a contract by identifying the type of ghost haunting a specific location. Communication happens through voice chat, both locally within a short distance and globally via walkie-talkies. The game uses speech recognition so that certain equipment, cursed items, and the ghost can understand key words and phrases spoken by players. Gathering evidence to identify the ghost and surviving earns most of the cash and experience points. Completing objectives, taking photos, videos, and audio can increase or double rewards. Investigators are encouraged to complete as many tasks as possible to level up and earn money to unlock maps, levels, and item upgrades.

Players create or join a lobby where contract preparation occurs. Phasmophobia allows players to choose from eight different paranormal investigator appearances to distinguish group members. Contract locations are voted on at two corkboards in the lobby, while difficulty is set by the host. All equipment is purchased and upgraded at a computer in the lobby and loaded into a van for use at the site. Surviving players or those who complete objectives (or choose to quit) must return to the van and close the barn doors to leave.

Phasmophobia includes twenty-seven different ghosts, each with unique behaviors and clues. Upon arriving at a site, one ghost type is randomly assigned for the mission. As players complete the contract, their sanity decreases based on events and circumstances. If sanity is low enough, the ghost will begin hunting and trying to kill players (unless the "Friendly Ghost" difficulty is enabled). During hunts, all exit doors are locked, forcing players to hide or escape until the hunt ends. Some ghosts may hunt at higher or lower sanity levels depending on their traits.

• 6 Tanglewood Drive
• 10 Ridgeview Court
• 13 Willow Street
• 42 Edgefield Road
• Camp Woodwind
• Grafton Farmhouse
• Nell’s Diner

• Bleasdale Farmhouse
• Maple Lodge Campsite
• Point Hope
• Prison
• Sunny Meadows Restricted

• Brownstone High School
• Sunny Meadows

When starting the game, players receive eight basic Tier I items: an old radio, a notepad, a laser pen, an electromagnetic field detector, an old camcorder, a mercury thermometer, a small UV flashlight, and a retro metallic flashlight. Additional items can be bought with money, and upgrades depend on player level. Some equipment, like firelights, igniters, incense, and crucifixes, may be needed for optional objectives and protection.

At the start of a contract, players enter the van, where they find their selected equipment and the Objective Board. The board lists objectives, the ghost’s name, and ten photos. The van also includes a Surveillance Computer (to monitor CCTV), a Sanity Monitor (to track player sanity), a site map, a Sound Sensor Screen (to stream audio), and a Site Activity Monitor (to track ghost activity). These tools are always in the van but may be disabled on certain difficulties. Players also have a journal to record ghost information, evidence, objectives, and photos. Evidence and ghost identification must be marked in the journal to earn money and experience points for upgrades.

Players must use equipment to identify three pieces of evidence unique to the ghost type and complete optional objectives. On Nightmare difficulty and higher, the ghost may show only two or fewer pieces of evidence, requiring players to use the ghost’s traits to identify it. Some ghosts have forced evidence that always appears if at least one piece is present. As of November 2025, there are seven possible ghost evidence types.

In the June 2025 "Chronicle" update, a media system was added to help players earn extra money and achieve perfect games. Each media type (photo, video, audio) has specific recordable items and uses different equipment.

Photo evidence is taken with a camera. Recordable items include ghosts, bones, dead bodies, fingerprints, footprints, EMF readings, freezing temperatures, dirty water, used crucifixes, ghost writing, and cursed possessions.

Video evidence is recorded with a video camera. Recordable videos include ghosts, teammates dying, ghost writing, ghost orbs, items being thrown, lights switching, doors moving, motion sensors, salt being disturbed, candles blowing out, Ouija Boards, crucifixes burning, and other paranormal interactions.

Audio evidence is recorded with a sound recorder. Recordable sounds include EMF 5, music boxes, Ouija Boards, candles blowing out, crucifixes burning, ghost writing, spirit box responses, ghost audio, and other paranormal sounds.

To achieve a perfect game, players must collect five unique photos, five unique videos, and three unique sounds. A unique media item is one not previously recorded (e.g., duplicate ghost photos give less money). Players must balance unique media requirements with limited deletions, as deleted media cannot be recovered. Lower difficulties allow more deletions, while higher difficulties allow fewer.

Cursed Possessions, also called "Cursed Items" or "Cursed Objects," are items that let players interact with the ghost. These items can make the ghost appear, force a hunt, ask questions, or even kill players. As of May 2024, there are seven cursed possessions: the Ouija Board, Music Box, Haunted Mirror, Tarot Cards, Summoning Circle, Voodoo Doll, and Monkey Paw. Each item has a 1 in 7 chance to appear on a map, with different spawn locations. Only one cursed item appears per map unless changed via custom difficulty. The "Insanity" difficulty has no cursed items. Cursed items reduce the multiplier for custom games, with the Monkey Paw reducing it by 5x. The Ouija Board, Music Box, Haunted Mirror, Tarot Cards, Summoning Circle, and Voodoo Doll were added in version 0.5.0. The Monkey Paw was added later in update 0.8.1.0.

• The Ouija Board was the first Cursed Possession in Phasmophobia.

Development

The game's Steam page was launched in March 2020. An announcement trailer was released three months later, introducing additional VR support and a release date for the early access version. On September 18, 2020, the game became available in early access for $14. After its release, the game received two major updates to fix bugs the following week and many content updates over the next three years. On June 13, 2023, Kinetic Games announced that console versions of the game would be released in August. However, a fire at the Kinetic Games office caused the release to be delayed until October. On October 17, 2023, Kinetic Games announced that the console versions were delayed again because of unexpected problems from the fire, and no new release date was set. After these delays, the console versions of the game were released on October 29, 2024.

In the future, Kinetic Games plans to improve systems like horror, hunts, and events. They also plan to add new features such as character customization, new character models and animations, new tasks, interactions, hallucinations, and ghost models.

Release

The game was first released on September 18, 2020, but it became more popular around the start of October because of Halloween. This was the first time the game became popular, and many well-known Twitch streamers and YouTubers played it. This likely happened because the game entered early access near the start of the Halloween season and was similar in popularity to its inspiration, P.T. In addition, early players shared game clips on social media, and others re-shared these clips or downloaded the game themselves. Much of the game's early success was because of its presence on social media. It may also have been influenced by the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused many people to stay home.

As more players joined the game because of popular streamers, hackers became common later in the game's release. Hackers often tried to scare players or create infinite items in the game. One serious example was "stream snipers," who changed their player models to ones not suitable for work, possibly leading to warnings or bans for the streamers. The game's developers then worked on updates to address these issues.

On Twitch, the game's popularity grew quickly and reached the top 5 most viewed games by mid-October, surpassing games like Among Us, Fortnite Battle Royale, FIFA 21, and Genshin Impact. According to the online player tracker GitHyp, the game had over 86,000 active players around October 10.

Reception

Phasmophobia received positive feedback from critics. GameRant called it the best horror game on Steam, noting that players on Steam were very impressed with the game. They also mentioned that when the game arrives on consoles, more players will be able to experience it soon. In August 2023, IGN listed it among the "12 Best Horror Games on PC," describing how the game creates exciting and scary moments, such as when players suddenly see their friends reacting to being caught by the game's ghosts and rushing to escape.

Rich Stanton from PC Gamer said the game is "the best ghost game ever made" and called it "unlike anything else I've played." He also mentioned that the game includes surprises that can be very frightening. Cass Marshall from Polygon gave a positive review, calling it a "cozy kind of horror" that becomes "brilliant" once the game starts. However, they noted that the game had some bugs, which were later fixed. Jeuxvideo.com praised the game for being original and creative, as well as scary. They said the game's maps were well-designed and that the difficulty increased at a good pace. While they criticized the game's animations and some repeated elements, they believed these issues would be improved with updates before the game's release. A review by CBR called the game "perfect for Halloween," praising its unique jump scares and sound effects. The game has been compared to other horror games, such as Friday the 13th: The Game and Dead by Daylight.

Phasmophobia became one of the top-selling games on Steam. By the end of October 2020, it was the best-selling game of that week, outperforming Fall Guys and pre-orders for Cyberpunk 2077. It remained the highest-selling game on Steam for three weeks in a row. As of December 2024, the game had sold more than one million copies on consoles and nearly 22 million total copies since its 2020 release.

As of February 2025, Phasmophobia had sold over two million copies across PlayStation 5, PlayStation VR2, and Xbox Series platforms, 104 days after it launched on consoles.

As of June 2025, a movie based on the video game was reported to be in development, produced by the horror film company Blumhouse Productions.