Phasmophobia is my most played game. I usually don't write reviews (not my forte and English isn't my native language) so I'll TRY to stay on point due to Steam's character limit since there's too much to say. I hope to provide you with an in-depth, honest review.
As you may know, this game started a whole genre on its own due to its explosive success:


- Gameplay seems simple at first, but can be tough for new players who lack information, and want to learn the hard way. It is no less fun, though. While it is still imperfect, I recommend playing the Tutorial first. Also read your Journal, the Store's explanations and Equipment descriptions. You play as a Ghost Hunter whose objective is to investigate haunted locations and identify the ghost's type by gathering evidence using typical equipment from ghost hunting shows (which inspired the game a lot). The game will not help you understand everything at first. You'll have no ingame HUD, a limited inventory space and a barebones stamina system allowing you to sprint for a few seconds before running out of breath. The game is primarily designed to be played as up to 4 Players, but it remains relatively fun and manageable in Solo. On successfully completing contracts, you'll earn XP/Money depending on the difficulty you play on, the objectives you complete, and how much extra evidence you fill your Journal with. You'll use that Money to buy more equipment and upgrade it. However, the leveling system is grindy and the majority of your equipment/upgrades will be level-locked before you buy them. You'll eventually have to play in higher difficulties to earn more rewards, and have to manage your funds to decide what upgrades are worth it or not. At some point you'll unlock the creation of Custom Difficulties so you can have your own tailor-made experience by modifying various parameters. It adds a bit of replayability, no matter your skill level. Ghosts have inherent, specific behaviors and tells outside of their main Evidences, which you will learn the more you familiarize yourself with the game and will be essential in harder modes.

- On the customization side of things: not much to say. You'll pick your character to play as, from a small selection. You can also earn various ID Cards/Badges by playing and completing various challenges/achievements, or by prestiging (level and gear reset). You'll find no real money monetization of the game such as cosmetics/battlepasses/DLCs. Everything beyond the base game price is free, a rare quality nowadays.

- It is a fun puzzle and paranormal-themed game that will keep you addicted if you click with the gameplay loop. Or you will become bored after some time. Speaking of it, if you want to play the game for its horror aspect, do not expect much. While there are a few jumpscares, they're pretty barebones and have been so for a long time, as this is a 6 Years Old Early Access game at that time. You quickly become desensitized to the horror and it is first and foremost a puzzle/investigation game. The game used to have unique seasonal events with fun and creative mechanics (Easter/Halloween/Christmas) until late 2024 and ended up being replaced with thematic but very grindy and repetitive seasonal events you can play to earn cosmetic rewards.


Everything I described above will be your experience. I'll be honest and say you'll definitely have your worth of fun and content for quite some time, considering the game's price. So why a negative review in spite of such a strong "Good" part so far ? Because there's still much to be done with the game, and to be said regarding the developers, Kinetic Games. If you want to understand my perspective on the game's downsides, keep reading, if you will.



- The Multiplayer is infested with cheaters, toxic guys and creeps. Cheaters tend to ruin your lobbies and your games. They also control the leaderboards during Seasonal Events (yes, leaderboards for casual events) by altering their score. Kinetic Games are out of touch with this situation and barely acknowledge the state of things.

- KG very recently started banning en-masse. Including false bans on which they refuse to disclose information (even if you're appealing) until their subreddit made a huge stink of it. You can also find other notorious dramas on them here such as their Art Director being a creep, toxic treatment of volunteers on their Discord, etc. They act in a very unprofessional manner.

- The game, 6 years later, remains plagued with numerous bugs of varying severity, that KG do not seem intent on fixing. These bugs can affect your gameplay, or even your save data. You might end up bothering with making a Discord account solely to ask for support on their server. The devs do not care about Steam forums and went to hide in a Discord echo chamber to silence criticism and valid concerns.

- The game is also notoriously poorly optimized and recent updates keep making things even worse on top of adding bugs. A lot of people with various Rigs are experiencing framerate drops/freezes, memory leaks and such. Console versions are no different and were hastily made, on top of delaying a lot of the main content for their sake. They haven't learned their lesson and are pushing for a Switch 2 port.

- KG's communication is very poor and lacks transparency and honesty. This results in long periods of silence and content droughts while they treat the game as a live-service with a weird obsession for the "Twitch Culture" with exclusive, time-limited drops and all sorts of FOMO-based content punishing people for having a life, working, etc. They've been known to make a lot of promises and roadmaps, on which they've consistently failed to deliver, when they're not just outright lying and quietly coming back on their promises only to add some divisive map reworks and the repetitive grindy events I mentioned. While the map reworks and new maps are really good IMO, the devs still try to avoid accountability when it comes to promised major updates such as the Player Character Rework or their Horror 2.0 Rework. They show no progress, no results when it comes to the bigger picture.

- Despite the game's huge success, making millions in revenue and KG becoming more than an "indie" studio (now at 40+ people), they've left the game in a half-broken state for years, and do not care about using their revenue to improve it. Their priorities instead lie in aggressively pushing unfinished console versions, and low-quality consoomer-bait merch or even collab' events with huge IPs while their game still sits in Early Access. They care more about today's "gamers" than their OG fans who've been voicing valid/honest concern since years despite no changes. They favor their clique of partner streamers and reinject their funds into pointless things (such as Kinetic Publishing/sponsorings), instead of finishing what they started. They can count on their massive following of "fans" blindly and dishonestly gaslighting and shutting down any form of criticism to defend them, as this game, by becoming mainstream, has gained a cult following comprised of the lowest common denominator. The latest and biggest example of KG's dishonesty can be summed up by quietly editing a promised Q1 2026 release timeframe out of their Dev Blog website to hide another delay they'll take no accountability for.

Take into account the controversies/issues I described and how KG made clear where their intentions lie (delaying the development while milking dry their naive and zealous community with always more predatory merch/FOMO), and you'll understand my Negative rating. In spite of loving the game so much and wishing the best for it, there's no expressing my disappointment and frustration with KG.

They do not deserve your support and even if you love the game, you'll regret it eventually. DO NOT BUY PHASMOPHOBIA.

This game used to be fun for me.

When it first released Phasmophobia was a refreshing take on ghost hunting games and an amazing release from an indie team most of which never really get noticed in 2020.

This game released in September of 2020 and has slowly been enshitified by its devs. As the years have gone on the devs for phasmophobia stopped caring about how the game performed and the content they were adding (for example the character editor we were promised years back now), the character models and the majority of maps are still after all this time "placeholder" assets, or in other word still just asset flips anyone can get from the unity store paid or free.

In the last year we received around 6 merch launches in the span of 3 months vs 1 map over the year and 2 map reworks plus seasonal events which were already coded into the game. Every merch launch also coincided with a merch drop, not even ubisoft, ea and activision release merch with every update, just for a few examples of extremely greedy companies being made to look good by Kinetic Games.

I wish the devs would listen to the players and fix the game, yes they need money to do so, so some merch is ok for that, but every update coinciding with a merch drop is not ok. A lot of people i know understand that the money is needed but the game has essentially (by the essence of how the devs are treating merch vs the game), abandoned

This has made it very hard to get frames on the light house map with a mid range rig, i'm talking 5fps-20fps, the more maps get added/updated the less the game is optimized as nothing gets really fleshed out before release..

i hope the devs realize this and fix themselves before they wreck themselves, purely for the fact that i want to enjoy the game again, i have no care for kinetic games anymore, it is a dev team i no longer wish to support financially, but i will continue playing phas when that once a year week long phas grind hits

miss what this game once was.

Phasmophobia is easily one of the best co-op horror games I’ve played. It nails that rare mix of tension, teamwork, and pure chaos where one minute you’re carefully hunting clues and the next everyone is screaming and sprinting for the truck.

What I loved most is how immersive everything feels. The investigations are fun, the atmosphere is fantastic, and every match manages to create its own little horror story. Playing with friends makes it even better, especially when plans immediately fall apart.

It’s scary, clever, unpredictable, and ridiculously fun. I loved all of it.