Getting started with Phasmo - all you need to know

This guide explains all the basic mechanics of Phasmophobia, and includes various useful tips. You will learn how to get evidence efficiently, make money and most importantly how to prevent, recognize and survive hunts. I have not listed all the different abilities of the ghosts, but you will find a basic overview of abilities that are related to sanity and hunts. At the very end, you will find some tips for those struggling with their courage.

Foreword

This guide will tell you all the things you need to know to get a basic understanding of Phasmophobia + some useful tips. It’s meant especially for players who have not yet started playing or those who only played a few times and find themselves lost. If you find a mistake or know about anything I should add, feel free to tell me in the comments.

First time playing Phasmophobia

When you first open Phasmo, explore the lobby! There are many interesting things to see, but the most important are: the computer, where you will buy equipment once you get some money, the corkboard on the left, where you select the map, and the corkboard where you select the contract.
Now, the very first thing I would advise you to do: go to your settings and take a good look at your keybinds, change them if you need. Also check your brightness. I would suggest setting it on about 1.5, but this depends on your preferences. For some reason, I had brightness set on 0.3 by default when I first started playing, which of course made it really hard to see and do anything. Also, it’s a good idea to set the brightness of your cursor to max, so you can more easily see where you are pointing. Also check your microphone settings and decide if you want to use a push to talk button or just let the game hear you all the time. I would suggest push to talk, especially if you are going to play solo, since that is safer during hunts.

Go try the training mode! It will briefly show you how the core of the game works. You will be shown the basic equipment, thetypes of evidence and how to hide during a hunt. They made the training much better than it used to be, so it's definitely worth trying.

When you decide you have had enough training, you can jump in a game. If you are playing solo, choose single-player on the main corkboard. Select Amateur difficulty (try at least one game there, or however many you need, before moving onto higher difficulties or custom ones). By clicking the arrow on the left, you get to choose the maps. At level 1, you will only be able to go to Tanglewood - the smallest map, but also one of the most popular. The arrow on the right will show you the computer where you can buy items (if you click shop on the top) and then choose how many you wish to take with you for the mission (in loadout). Without money, you cannot buy any additional equipment, so your first mission(s) will have to be just with the basic items provided for free. On the main corkboard, click Ready Up and then Start to load into the game.

Which ghost haunts this location?

The main goal in Phasmo is to identify the type of ghost you are dealing with. Every ghost exhibits three types of evidence (with the exception of the Mimic, who fakes one additional evidence – fake orbs). There are seven types of evidence in total – EMF 5, Spirit Box, Freezing, Ultraviolet , Ghost Orbs, D.O.T.S. and Writing.
After you load into the game, you grab the key (very important, if you don’t want to do the walk of shame back to the truck), the flashlight and two more items – I would personally suggest the photo camera (once you have it) and the EMF reader if you are solo. You have three slots in your inventory (or four if you are in VR) – note that keys and head gear do not take inventory space.


Your first goal is to find the ghost. The ghost has its own ghost room where it will be the majority of the time. Sometimes it will also take short trips into nearby rooms and occasionally even change the ghost room in the middle of the match. It’s usually easy to find – listen for the sound of items being thrown, knocks on windows, doors opening/closing on their own or water being turned on in the bathroom. Look for light switches being turned on or off. You can use a thermometer – the temperature around the ghost is lower than everywhere else (<10°C), but the fuse box (which also turns on the heating) has to be turned on for a while! Otherwise the entire house is not heated enough to see this difference. You will also see your puffs of breath (for older players - this now does not mean freezing temperatures!). Beware – if the ghost physically shows up in front of you (= a ghost event), it does not mean it must be the ghost room. The ghost can teleport to you for the ghost event and then just stroll back to its room as though nothing happened.
Once you have the ghost located, you need to bring in all the evidence equipment to the ghost room and the investigation can really start. Mark down the evidence you get in the journal. You can also cross out evidence you are absolutely certain the ghost is not exhibiting.

• For Freezing – you have to use a Thermometer, you can simply use it to see if you can find a spot in the ghost room that has temperature below the freezing point (0°C or 32F).Note that you can only get freezing temperatures after some time passes in the game, not right away. It takes a while for the temperature around the ghost to drop (as the ghost is only activated the moment you open the front door). Also the first tier thermomether is very slow to update. If the ghost keeps walking around a lot, freezing can be hard to get, because the temperature never drops that low in one place. Also note that seeing your breath only means the temperature is below 5°C (either the ghost is near or your fuse box is off), not that you have Freezing evidence.

• Either hold the D.O.T.S. or place it to iluminate a large area of the ghost room. Then you just need to wait for the ghost to appear as a silhouette in the D.O.T.S. – that can be hard to see with plain eye, for beginners I recommend turning off the lights and placing a camera in the room, then looking through the camera using night vision on the monitor in the truck (you swap cameras by clicking the mouse and turn on night vission by clicking the keyboard).

• While there, you can also look for Ghost Orbs, which you can only see through the camera – either from the truck or while holding it in your hand (in that case, turn off your flashlight and the light in the room, and use night vision - it will really help). You might have to look around the ghost room a bit and possibly in the neighboring rooms as well before you write off Ghost Orbs. Don’t be tricked by falling snow! If you are not certain, remember that an Orb (there is a single one) can float sideways and up, while snow only falls down.

• To get EMF 5, bring your active EMF Reader close to any objects the ghost interacted with . Even if the ghost has this evidence, there is only a relatively small chance of EMF 5, most times you will only get EMF 2 to 4. You have to try many times before you can decide the ghost really does not have EMF 5. You cannot get EMF 5 during a hunt, the equipment just gets crazy. You can also read EMF from the EMF board in the truck – but it shows the overall EMF of the house, so you might be seeing EMF 2 and EMF 3 layered over each other or the EMF of a ghost event and confuse it with EMF 5. Using the EMF Reader is safer if you are starting out.

• Place down the Writing Book with the secondary action button, ideally on the ground somewhere in the middle of the ghost room. If you put it in a corner, the ghost will have a lower chance of being in range of it and thus interacting with it. Sometimes it takes forever for a writing ghost to write in the book, so you should never cross off this evidence in the journal. Particularly because low tier equipment has lower frequency of interaction.
  
  
• Ultraviolet evidence is fairly straightforward – just shine your UV light on light switches, doors, windows or cooler boxes (in basements and attics) the ghost touches. You will see very obvious green fingerprints. The fingerprints disappear after about two minutes, so don’t miss them. UV light can also reveal green footprints after the ghost steps in salt (you will be able to purchase that later) and they ALSO count as Ultraviolet evidence - this was a change made in August 2023.

• To use the Spirit Box, you should be alone in the room (unless the board in the truck says the ghost responds to everyone) and have the lights off (it’s a bit of a bravery challenge for new players, isn’t it?). You can have your flashlight on, of course. Ask questions such as “Where are you?”, “How old are you?”, “Are you angry?”, “Do you like me?” and so on, it will register many different questions. If it hears your question, it will tell you through a little red light. If the spirit box does not hear you, you might have the wrong mic selected in settings or might be using push to talk and not using the button (check settings). If neither is the issue, then try clicking the windows button on your keyboard twice (only if you are using Windows, of course). That usually settles the issue for me.

Once you gather all three evidence, you have to circle the ghost type in the journal. Your main objective is finished!

Making more money – objectives, photos and the bone

Aside from the main objective, you can also finish secondary objectives from the board in the truck (you will find them under the photos). Most of them, however, require the use of equipment that has to be bought by you, so you will not be able to do them in your first few games. The objectives are mostly straightforward and don’t really require an explanation. The game also gives you daily and weekly tasks, which you can see both in the lobby and in the truck.

Another way to make more money is by taking photos. Your first ten photos will be rewarded with money if you captured something worthwhile (or rather, if the game thinks you captured something worthwhile). Photographing the ghost gives the highest reward of 20/10/5 dollars depending on the amount of stars. Pictures of the bone, used crucifixes and dirty water also give a lot (10/5/2 dollars). Everything else has the same, lowest reward of 5/2/1 dollar: a used Writing Book, dead body of another player, cursed item, fingerprints and various items the ghost interacted with (this must be done right after, before the EMF on the object disappears!). Easy way to fill up your journal with photos is to use salt and take pictures of footprints (and the stepped-in salt pile itself), if your ghost has the Ultraviolet evidence. They must be first charged by UV light! Even D.O.T.S. pictures can be taken, and they count as a ghost photo. When you take photos, you want to be as close to the subject as possible to get three stars (the closer, the more stars, the more money). If the subject is on the ground, crouch. You can view your photos in your journal and on the board in the truck.


While you look for the ghost room, you might stumble upon the Bone. It can be a skull, a pelvis, a thigh bone, a hand, a ribcage, a spine… Take a photo of it with a camera (it gives quite a bit of money!) and pick it up like you would equipment (more money!). You don’t need an empty inventory slot, the bone just disappears to who knows where.

The payout works like this: The primary objective (= getting the ghost right) gives you on the size of the map. Then secondary objectives give you a small reward. These are summed up and multiplied by the difficulty multiplier (1x for amateur, 2x for intermediate etc.). The bone gives additional money based on the size of the map. Finally, the reward for photos is added in, it also does not get multiplied.

To make the ghost type the main part of the mission, there is now also Investigation Bonus. If you get the ghost type right and survive, the money for all the objectives (primary and secondary) is multiplied by 2. Apart from that, you can also get the Perfect Investigation Bonus - you have to survive, complete all objectives, get the bone and fill the journal with 10 three star photos of any kind (there can, but does not have to be a ghost photo - in fact, it's safer to not try for it because you will often fail to get a three star). For a perfect investigation, your money for objectives is also doubled, but a small reward is also added on top of that.

If you decide to play on custom difficulty - the multiplier is currently capped at 15x, you cannot get more. Also, if you get the ghost type wrong, your multiplier is brought down to the nearest default difficulty. This was implemented to prevent players abusing custom difficulties for quick cash and XP.

A really good new way to get money are Weekly Challenges that have been added in March 2023. Every week, there will be a challenge (you choose it in the difficulty settings) that you have to correctly guess the ghost three times on a specific map. You do not even have to survive or do anything else but correctly identify the ghost (unless specified in the challenge, I guess). After that, you get a significant amount of money and XP. You do not get much for completing the missions themselves (1x multiplier), because there is a setting that prevents you from losing items if you die - in fact, all equipment is provided to you for free! This means that even a new player can attempt this challenge without having to fear losing items!

Cursed possessions – good servants, bad masters

You will find one random cursed item on your map. There are seven of them in the game, each has a fixed placement on each map. They can help you find the ghost, get evidence or complete objectives, but they usually come at the price of lowering your sanity and triggering cursed hunts, which last longer than normal hunts (and any following hunts will be prolonged as well).

• The Haunted Mirror will show you the room where the ghost is, but each second you look into it, you lose sanity – and once it reaches zero, it will break and start a cursed hunt. Great for finding the ghost or getting a hunt.

• The Summoning Circle is mainly used for getting a ghost photo, but it is quite risky. You need to light all the candles (be aware that each takes a chunk off your sanity and you must have at least 16% to pay for the very last candle or a hunt starts immediately – but you don’t need enough sanity for the previous candles, so you can just take a pill before lighting the very last candle), the ghost appears and stands in the circle for a few seconds, then starts a cursed hunt. Quickly take your photo and get out of there! Also, never light the circle during an ongoing hunt, it brings an immediate death.

• The Voodoo Doll can be used to get evidence faster. There are ten pins, you push them in one by one. Each triggers an interaction – the ghost throws stuff, touches doors/windows, it can interact with the D.O.T.S. or write in the Writing Book (if it has this evidence). It can help check faster for EMF 5, Fingerprints, D.O.T.S. and Writing. Each pin takes a certain amount of sanity. If you don’t have enough sanity, or if you randomly push in the heart pin, a cursed hunt will be triggered.

• The Ouija Board is extremely useful. Activate it and ask a question. There are many questions you can ask, but the most important are these: “Where are you?” (will give you the current location of the ghost, but costs the most sanity, about 40%) and “Where is the Bone?” (very useful if you can’t find it, especially on bigger maps, costs about 20% sanity). If you don’t have enough sanity, the board will break and a cursed hunt will start. You can also start it yourself by saying “Hide and seek.” (for free). Once you finish asking your questions, you must say “Goodbye” to the board, otherwise a cursed hunt will start once you walk a certain distance away from it.

• The Tarot Cards are perhaps the most popular and fun of the cursed items, because of their unpredictability. You get a deck of 10 cards. The most common cards are the Tower (which forces the ghost to do an interaction), the Wheel of Fortune (green flames give and red flames take 25% sanity) and the Fool card (which will first look like another card, then burn and reveal the Fool card – nothing happens). Relatively high (10%) is the chance of drawing the Hermit card (teleports the ghost into its ghost room and locks him there for a bit), the Devil card (forces a ghost event) or the Death card (starts a cursed hunt). Less common are the Sun and Moon cards, which give and take 100% sanity respectively. The rarest are the High Priestess (revives the last player that died or the next player that will die – in singleplayer, you get one more life!) and the dreaded Hanged Man, the card that will immediately kill whoever draws it.

• The Music Box plays a haunted tune and the ghost starts humming along, making it possible to find it. If the ghost is close enough to the box, it will appear and start walking towards it. Upon contact, a cursed hunt starts. But you can also trigger the hunt if you just drop the Music Box while it is active (you can, however, safely place it down). The music also drains your sanity if you are nearby. Useful for finding the ghost on larger maps or if you need a hunt.

Since March 2023, there is a seventh cursed possession - the Monkey Paw. You can voice one of the possible wishes (you can find tags with the wishes on Sunny Meadows, it will be added to your journal in the item section). One of the fingers on the Monkey Paw will curl and your wish will be granted - but there will also be a price you will pay. How many wishes (3-5) you have depends on the difficulty - the higher the difficulty, the less wishes.

• "I wish for snow/heavy rain/fog/sunrise/clear skies..." - changes the weather, for the price of 25% sanity. Could be very handy if you have bad weather on a campsite. Or just if you want to quickly lower your sanity.
  
• "I wish for sanity" - everyone's sanity is set to 50%. Passive sanity drain is increased by 50% and the ghost room randomly changes. If you don't like the current ghost room (for example you got the Bleasdale attic, or maybe some basement), this is a potential way to solve that.
  
• "I wish for activity." - all activity of the ghost is doubled for two minutes. However, during that time, the front door will be locked. The fuse box will also break and you won't be able to turn it on again. This is quite punishing on a small map, but it's fine on a big one - you will find yourself not using the lights there much anyway.
  
• "I wish the ghost was trapped." - the ghost is trapped in its ghost room for 1 minute. You yourself are locked in the room you are in (= ideally don't wish this while in the ghost room). Once the minute is up, a hunt starts. Great if you need to start a hunt. ...or kill your teammates. (just don't that in public lobbies! with friends only!)
  
• "I wish to see the ghost." - the ghost will perform a ghost event (in its current possition, so if you want to actually see it, you need to be nearby). Immediately after, it will start a hunt, for which your vision will be impaired by a black fog.
  
• "I wish for life." - revives a dead player. But you have a 50% chance you will drop dead in return. Not for use in singleplayer.
  
• "I wish I was safe." - if you stand near a blocked hiding spot, it will unblock it. This is obviously useless in Amateur where all hiding spots are available. As for the price - the room's lightbulb will burst. Additionally, the ghost will now hear you and your equipment at any range during a hunt.
  
• "I wish to leave." - unlocks all doors, you may use that to escape during a hunt. However, you will be stunned for 5 seconds then will slowly recover speed and vision. So you can't really use it in a pinch, you need to know you have time to wait out the consequences.
  
• "I wish for knowledge." - crosses out an evidence in your journal. But also starts a hunt near you, while reducing your audio and vision. Not really worth it, unless you are playing with less evidence.
  
• "I wish for anything." - will randomly fulfill a wish, including the unpleasant side-effects. Just for the fun of it.

Fuse box, the big annoyance

The fuse box controls the lights in the house, but also the heating – which is essential if you wish to use temperature to find the ghost. If you play on Amateur, the fuse box starts on, but on other difficulties, it starts off and one of your first orders of business will probably be to find it and turn it on (there are usually two or three locations on each map where it can be, you can see it marked on the map in the truck, unless you play on Nightmare).

The ghosts have a very annoying tendency to turn it off (no matter how far away they are!), so even on Amateur, you will find yourself running to the fuse box regularly. The ghosts can also turn it on, but you don’t see that happen very often (mostly because you are already keeping it on yourself).

You can also accidentally blow the breaker by turning on too many lights (the ghost can also do this by turning on one light too many). This unfortunately exists for performance reasons. Depending on the size of the map, you can only turn on about 7-9 lights at a time. I would advice to keep the main rooms lit up (the way to the ghost room and to the places you want to hide in in case of a hunt), but turn off the lights in the ‘dead ends’.

Which map to choose?

The smallest map, Tanglewood, is undoubtedly the best introductory map for a solo beginner.

They actually made it so you unlock the maps gradually, starting from Tanglewood. From level 2 (so after one game), you will have access to Edgefield and Ridgeview , which are larger houses with a basement and a bunch of bedrooms upstairs, but they are still comfortable for a solo player.

Personally, I think it would have been better to first visit Willow and Grafton – they are only slightly larger than Tanglewood, have only two floors and a simple layout. Grafton also has many hiding places, which makes it relatively easy to survive in no matter the difficulty you play on. As a farmhouse, though, it is a bit darker and creepier than the normal street houses. You unlock Grafton at level 4 and Willow at level 6.

Bleasdale Farmhouse, already unlocked at level 4, on the other hand, could be considered a medium map in my opinion. It has downstairs, upstairs and the dreaded attic. If the ghost chooses the attic as the ghost room, it becomes a very painful mission. It is a long walk to the truck for items and it is not easy to survive a hunt if it starts while you are up there with the ghost. Out of the small maps, Bleasdale is the one I would recommend the least to a solo beginner. It is much better to have at least two players there.


Woodwind Campsite is a very small outdoor map. Being outside brings some inconveniences – bad weather can be very annoying, the heating does not really work and it is harder to evade the ghost in the open space. Also, some players experience bad lagging on campsites. But definitely check this map out, it can be a fun change of pace, despite the drawbacks. Both campsite maps are unlocked at level 13.

The Maple Lodge Campsite is still relatively doable when you are alone (I would say it is similar to Bleasdale), but the large maps are absolutely meant for groups. If you go to the High School (lvl 8), the Prison (lvl 11) or Sunny Meadows Asylum (lvl 17) on singleplayer, be prepared for endless walks back and forth for items. If you have other people to play with, go ahead, but I would say leave it until you are a bit more familiar with the game.

Sunny Meadows Restricted is the same map as Sunny Meadows Asylum, but most of the wings are blocked, which creates a map of similar size to Bleasdale. There are five versions of the map (based on which wing you get access to), you will be given one randomly. You should definitely also check this one out, even in single player, but you will have to wait for level 17.

Equipment and XP

THIS SECTION IS UNDER RECONSTRUCTION TO INCLUDE CHANGES MADE IN AUGUST 2023. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

At the start of your game, you have access to only the most basic necessary equipment for evidence gathering. For every game, you get one of each of these items provided for free.

All equipment in this game has three tiers. As you progress in the game, you can upgrade it for money. Afterwards, buying higher tier equipment doesn't cost more.

What equipment you have is the main thing linked to your XP. To progress from one level to the next one you will need progressively more XP, starting at 100XP and getting to 5000 at level 99->100. Once you reach level 100, you can choose to restart your level and money (and equipment) and you will be awarded +1 prestige. You can see your prestige in front of your level on your ID card. Essentially, you can start the whole Phasmo journey over and over again. For raising your prestige, you get a badge and an additional loadout slot in the shop.

There is a lot of additional equipment you can purchase. Once you reach the level required, straight after your mission, you will get a pop-up asking you to accept getting the equipment. BEWARE! Accepting doesn't mean you own that. You only buy the right to buy it. Now you have to go to the shop, buy the equipment there, and add it in your loadout. It is pretty confusing there. Check on the main board (the list on the right) whether you are actually taking the equipment with you.

Any equipment you buy and take with you will be lost if you die!


Some of the equipment is now also consumable (one time use), based on common sense. This means it includes crucifixes, igniters, salt and sanity medication of all tier. And apart from the third tier, also incense and firelights.

Some items are needed for secondary objectives to get more money – first you unlock a Photo Camera[/b], then later things like Salt, Igniter (you need that for candles and incense, they are useless without it), a Candle (unfortunately you cannot pick up candles that can be found in some maps, nor do they have a sanity saving effect), an Incense and a Crucifix.

Photo camera - will allow you to take pictures. An unlimited amount of them, so you only need one camera. Only the first ten photos will go in your journal and give you money. Get it as soon as you can and learn using it! Always take one photo of the bone, the cursed item and (if you can, during a ghost event or through DOTS) the ghost. Only one counts of these counts. You can take as many photos of interactions, footprints and handprints (charged up with UV! they gotta be visible!) etc. as you want. If a sink fills up with dirty water, snap a picture too.

Motion sensor, second to be unlocked at lvl 5, has to be placed on a wall (secondary action key). Anything that moves past it (both players and ghost) will trigger it. You can see the motion sensor in the truck and with higher tiers you will get a sound notification when it is triggered. Used for a secondary objective and monitoring the ghost's movements.

Salt is used by placing it down (secondary action key = aka. the placement key) in the ghost room. Then you wait for the ghost to step in it and start walking around. Use UV to reveal footprints, charge them up with the light and quickly take photos before they disappear. This is Ultraviolet evidence, so only some ghosts will show green footprints. However, all ghosts (but one) will step into the salt - and you can take a photo of the stepped-in salt pile.

Candles can be placed in the ghost room or held in hand for the ghost to blow out, or you can use them to keep your sanity high.

A crucifix can be dropped or placed with the placement (then you can see its range) around the ghost. Tier I only stops one hunt, better crucifixes can stop more.

Incense will be explained in the hunt sections.

Parabolic Microphone is held in hand, activated and pointed in the direction of the ghost, then you can hear the ghosts footsteps and various paranormal sounds. It can be also used to find the ghost, especially on larger maps.

Tripods are not that necessary, but are definitely handy for placing the Video Camera in the best spot. Pick up the Video Camera and place it on top of the Tripod with the secondary action key. Then grab the Tripod and take it wherever you need. You cannot put it in your inventory, you must hold it in hand (it's just too big).

As for Sanity Meds – if you play on Amateur, you don’t really need them, but you can definitely buy some early on just to feel safer if you really don’t wish to get hunted. Or if you plan to mess around with the cursed items. You lose them upon use.

Sound Sensors currently have very limited use, they should be the very last thing you buy – and only if you are going to the large maps. You use them by placing them somewhere on the map, then in the truck you can see if there are any sounds in a certain range of the sensor. It's for tracking down the ghost. Their range is very large, so using them on small maps is pointless.

Head Mounted Cameras are only usable in multiplayer – one player has to be in the truck to look at the monitor while another player walks around with the camera on their head.

You can also get more evidence items (the game provides you with a set for free, but you can buy more). I find this useful mainly for the Ghost Writing Book – sometimes it can be really hard to convince the ghost to write, especially if it moves around a lot, so having two well-placed books gives you a chance of beating this evidence out of the ghost faster. Having two D.O.T.S. Projectors can also be useful in large rooms.

What is a hunt and how to survive it?

So you already know how to make money, but unfortunately, you also need to survive the mission to receive it. Ghosts have the unfortunate habit of trying to get rid of whoever is pestering them in their peaceful afterlife.

In this game, you will not get killed out of nowhere. The ghost can only kill you during hunts.

At the start of a hunt, the front doors close and lock you inside the place. In a certain range from the ghost, you will hear a specific hunting sound (the ghost chooses one of the possible vocalizations and uses the same for every hunt of the mission – so after the first hunt, just listen for the same sounds and you will know it is hunting again). At the beginning of a hunt, there is a grace period of several seconds (5 on Amateur, one less on each higher difficulty, and cursed hunts only have 1-2 seconds grace period). During this time, the ghost is staying still and does not sense you.

After the grace period, the ghost will start walking around the location and looking for players. You will start hearing its footsteps and the house lights (if they were on) will flicker in whatever room the ghost currently is. The ghost kills by making physical contact with a player.

To know how to survive, you need to understand how the ghost locates a player. Within a certain range (about 9-10 meters for most ghosts), the ghost can hear whatever you say towards the game (or even your background noise). So if you don’t use push to talk, you must stay silent during hunts (and pray there is not going to be a garbage truck driving past your house). If you have push to talk, just don’t press the button and you’ll be fine. The ghosts cannot hear your footsteps or whatever sounds you make in the game.

Another way the ghost locates you (in about the same range) is through active electronic equipment held in your inventory. You will notice any equipment in this range will also start going crazy. So turn off those flashlights, don’t hold cameras, active EMF reader, a spirit box, parabolic microphone or thermometer. Out of electronics, only Head Gear does not attract the ghost - the developers fortunately saw that this could be an issue. Equipment that is not electronic – like candles, lighters, glowsticks etc. is not registered by the ghost, so you can safely hold these during hunts, even if they produce light. Any electronic equipment thrown on the ground is also ignored – you must hold it to attract the ghost.

And lastly, there is line of sight. If the ghost sees you, it will start speeding up and chasing you. To get rid off the ghost, you have to break line of sight at least twice. When you break line of sight once, the ghost will continue chasing you to the corner where it last saw you. If it sees you there again, it will continue chasing you. But if it no longer sees you, it will return to randomly searching for players and will slow down again. If you are nimble enough, you can close the doors behind you while escaping to break line of sight. Otherwise, use corners and furniture. It's a good idea to crouch, as many pieces of furniture are high enough to block line of sight if you do so. Of course, if you have your flashlight or other equipment on, it will continue chasing you even after you broke line of sight twice - so don’t forget to turn everything off!

So in conclusion, the moment you realize a hunt has started, you will want to run to a hiding spot, turn off or drop all electronics in your inventory and not speak. Hiding spots are places where the ghost cannot or is very unlikely to make line of sight with you. The classic hiding spots are closets and lockers, where you can fully shut yourself in. The ghost can, however, randomly open doors to closets and lockers while passing by – so keep holding the door and/or be always prepared to quickly shut it again if it suddenly opens (you have a short moment to do so before the ghost notices you). Other hiding spots are behind various furniture or boxes. A good hiding spot is sheltered on three sides and the only open side faces somewhere the ghost is unlikely to patrol during the hunt. On Willow in particular, there are no lockers or closets, only boxes, trashcans or other things you can hide behind. If you run out of options, you can also hide behind doors. Keep in mind the ghost must not see you while you run behind there and you must NOT keep holding the door, or the ghost can detect you.

On Amateur, all hiding spots on the map are open for use, but on higher difficulties, you will always need to first check where your open hiding spots are.

No hiding spots are 100% foolproof, even if you do everything correctly.

Let me present you the holy lifesaving item – the Incense. If you unluckily find yourself in a close proximity to the ghost during a hunt (within about 6 meters), you can light the incense (you must have an igniter in your inventory!) and the ghost will not be able to kill you for 6 seconds and will start roaming aimlessly. Use that time to get to safety, you can even run through the ghost. In multiplayer, you can also use incense for your teammates, but only in a limited range, so for example not from the truck. Let’s say one player is within 6 meters of the ghost while you are watching from further away with an incense in hand – just light it and it will still work! Unfortunately for you, it is unlocked as the very last item - at level 14.

You can also do some preparations to minimize the risks of dying. After you find the ghost room, think about what hiding spots you have at your disposal and choose about two. Ideally one close to the ghost room and another somewhere on the way from the ghost room to the front door. Keep the lights on on the way to the hiding spots – since you should not use flashlights during a hunt, and you don’t really want to run around in complete darkness (leave that for when you know the map as perfectly as your own home). It will also let you know when a hunt ends (the lights turn off). Leave the doors on the way open to escape faster. You can also choose to leave an emergency incense with an ingniter in some convenient place. On larger maps, a glowstick can be used to mark a hiding spot or your escape route to help you with orientation.

How do you know it is safe to leave the hiding spot? When the hunt stops, you will stop hearing the hunt vocalization and footsteps, but that also happens when the ghost roams too far away from you. I would say there are three main indications that the hunt has stopped. All lights in the house will turn off. You will be able to open the front door again. But perhaps the most useful tip: you will be able to toggle light switches. During the hunt, you cannot toggle light switches at all. So get out of your hiding spot, walk to a light switch and try if you can click it. If not, go back to hiding.

Hunts last somewhere between 20 to 63 seconds, depending on difficulty and the size of the map. Larger map means longer hunts. Cursed hunts and any subsequent hunts also last additional 20 seconds. If a player is killed, the hunt ends early – with the exception of Nightmare difficulty, where this prolongs the hunt instead.

In between two hunts, there is always at least 25 seconds long cooldown period (with the exception of one ghost that can hunt more often).

What triggers a hunt and how to prevent it?

Some players enjoy the thrill of being hunted, but others might be more interested in the investigation part of the game and not want to get hunted at all. I, for example, mostly enjoy doing a safe investigation and only afterwards I let the ghost hunt to get objectives. Phasmophobia allows you to play whichever way you prefer, you only need to know the mechanics.

At the beginning of a game on lower difficulties, there is a setup period, during which ghosts cannot hunt (unless you trigger a cursed hunt with cursed items). It lasts 5 minutes on Amateur and 2 and a half minutes on Intermediate.




In the truck, you will find a board that shows your sanity. The team’s average sanity is the most important thing determining the ghost’s ability to hunt. The majority of ghosts cannot hunt until the average team sanity is less than 50%. If you keep your sanity above 65% at all times, there are only 5 ghosts that could potentially hunt you – and some of them only if certain conditions are met. The lower your sanity is, the more often ghosts hunt.

Keeping your sanity high is the best way to avoid hunts. How do you lose sanity, you ask?

• There is a passive drain to your sanity anytime you are in dark rooms (works only inside the haunted location, not outside). On Amateur, this drain is very slow and you don’t really have to worry about it much. On higher difficulties, it is more noticeable. The drain is also slower in singleplayer and during the setup phase.

• Most ghost events take a bite off your sanity.

• Certain ghosts have abilities that can suddenly lower your sanity or drain it faster.

• There is some small drain to your sanity when you see the ghost manifest during hunts.

• Using most cursed items costs sanity.

• On multiplayer, if another player dies, you lose 15% sanity.

Now, how to keep your sanity high?

• To prevent passive sanity drain, turn on the MAIN LIGHT in the rooms where you intend to spend more time. This stops passive sanity drain completely. In some rooms (like in Sunny Meadows), the main light is very weak, so the developers made it lower the sanity drain only by 20% instead of fully.

• Another way to lower passive sanity drain is by holding a burning candle or another source of fire (= Firelight equipment). The effectiveness depends on the tier. This is not particularly useful, because you need to also hold an igniter. Firelights go out on their own after some time or they can be blown out by the ghost, so you need to have something to relight them with. They also go out if you put them in your inventory instead of holding them. That leaves you with one inventory spot, which you will probably want for your flashlight. Candles are not good sources of light by any means. Although to be fair, they can be useful in large maps, where you might have to walk around a lot in the dark to find the ghost, the fuse box or the bone (though most people tend to give up on looking for the bone on large maps, for good reasons).

• Active sanity drains are hard to evade. During ghost events, try to go as far away from the ghost as possible. Try not to let the ghost walk into you or the smoke ball to hit you – but these are quite hard to accomplishes most of the time.

• To get your sanity back, you can only eat Sanity Medication. The amount of sanity you get from a single med depends on the tier and also the difficulty.

• Certain Tarot Cards can give you sanity too, but they might also take more away. Not a reliable method at all.

Keep an eye on your sanity, eat meds if you are getting too low and don’t feel ready to get a hunt.

If your sanity falls under the hunt sanity threshold, you can also prevent hunts using Crucifixes and Incense.

If you burn an incense near the ghost (outside of or during a hunt, doesn’t matter), it will not be able to start a hunt for a while.

As for Crucifixes, they are not a very reliable method of preventing hunts. They will stop a ghost from initiating a hunt, but only if the ghost is in a very close range (depending on the tier). A crucifix tier I can stop only one hunt, better ones can stop more. In small rooms, you should be able to stop hunts relatively reliably if you have two crucifixes in good positions, but in larger rooms, it is very unreliable. There is, however, one very smart way to use them. Sometimes, it happens that you are inside the ghost room and the ghost starts a hunt from the doorway, or on the stairs if you are in the basement or attic, which can cut off your escape route and trap you in a dead-end. It’s a good idea to put a crucifix on the stairs, in the doorways or any other areas in or near the ghost room from which you really do not want the ghost to start a hunt.

Is it a ghost event or a hunt?

There are several types of ghost events. One is the ‘smoke-ball’ ghost event featuring black mist floating into you and disappearing with a hiss. Other events include the ghost manifesting. The ghost can either keep standing still in one place or walk into you and hiss. Such events are accompanied by random vocalizations (singing, crying etc.), electronic equipment going crazy, lights potentially flickering, turning red, shattering, turning off, and the doors of the room may close.

Several signs of an event are shared with hunts. So it can sometimes be hard to tell at first which one you are dealing with.

I will remind you what the start of a hunt looks like: the front doors of the location close, specific hunt vocalization plays (during one game, the ghost will always use the same one), lights start flickering, nearby equipment goes crazy. The ghost, however, stays in place for several seconds (the grace period) before it starts walking and you hear footsteps. You cannot toggle light-switches.

If you hear the front door being shut – it is almost 100% hunt, the ghost can't otherwise interact with the front door, unless it does a specific ghost event in the room with the front door (fairly rare)! Listening for the sound of the front door closing at all times is a great survival strategy (you have to keep leaving them open and be close enough to hear it, though).

If you hear a vocalization play and footsteps start right away – it is an event, a hunt would have a grace period, so the footsteps would only come several seconds after the vocalization starts.

If the doors of the room you are in close (sans the front door), or the lights in the room suddenly turn off (or turn red) – it is an event. A hunt will do neither of these.

If you already had a previous hunt and the ghost was, let’s say, singing, and now you hear whispering as the vocalization – it is definitely an event. For the entire game, the ghost will only use one hunt vocalization. The vocalization for an event is always random (it can at some point randomly be the same as the hunt one, though).

If you are not entirely certain, you can either run away preventively or quickly try to go to a light switch and see if you can interact with it. If you can’t, run for your life.

Most dangerous ghost abilities

Ghosts don’t just have different combinations of evidence, they also each have their own unique behavior traits and abilities. You can choose to discover them on your own or search them up. The journal gives you a general idea of what their abilities might be about, but be careful – don’t take the information in the journal literally. It’s there more often for immersion than for solid information. It can be very misleading.

I will not list out all the different special traits and abilities of all the ghosts. As interesting as it is, a beginner doesn’t really need the knowledge to get started, because you will probably be identifying ghosts by evidence for a while. Once you get the hang of that, it’s worth it to learn the unique abilities and try identifying ghosts using that instead. Experienced players can find the ghost type with no evidence at all – and with luck and the right ghost type, they can even find out right after stepping in the house!

What I will give you now, though, is a list and a quick description of the ghost types that have unique traits linked to sanity drain, sanity thresholds and speed during hunts. This information is closely linked to your survival, thus I deem it the most important. Keep in mind that the Mimic can choose to become any of these ghosts as well and mimic their traits. If you want detailed information on ghost traits, there are plenty guides where you can search it up. Just in case anyone wants to leave even this as a surprise, I will mark it as spoiler.

Ghosts with other sanity thresholds for hunts than 50%:

• Yokai– 80% - but only if a player is speaking next to the ghost, otherwise normally 50%.

• Thaye – 75% - but this threshold gets lower (to a minimum of 15%) the more time players spend near the ghost.

• Demon – 70%, and they also have a rare ability to hunt anytime regardless of sanity. If you get a hunt right after you enter the house, you are most likely dealing with this ghost.

• Raiju – 65% if the ghost is near active electronical equipment (like D.O.T.S., Spirit Box, EMF Reader, your flashlight… house lights and other household electronics do not matter).

• Onryo – 60%, but they can also start a hunt anytime if they blow out a firelight.

• Mare – 60% if the ghost is in a dark room, 40% if it is in a room with lights on.

• Banshee – this ghost has normal threshold (50%), however, it only looks at the sanity of the player it chose to target at the beginning of the game, not the average team sanity. Doesn’t matter at all in singleplayer.

• Deogen – 40%.

• Shade – 35% .

The following ghosts can affect your sanity in unusual ways. The Jinn, Yurei and Moroi are probably the most dangerous in this aspect.

• Banshee – they choose one player as their target and if they sing next to this player, it lowers their sanity by 5%.

• Jinn – if the fuse box is on, the Jinn can suddenly lower your sanity by 25% provided you are near the ghost.

• Moroi – can place a curse through sound (Parabolic Microphone or Spirit Box) that doubles your passive sanity drain – this drain is not stopped by light or candles. The curse can be paused by stepping outside the haunted location and removed by taking Sanity Pills.

• Oni – drains sanity twice as fast during events.

• Phantom – when you look at a Phantom during events and hunts, your sanity is drained twice as fast.

• Poltergeist – throwing objects near a player causes small losses of sanity.

• Yurei – if you stand within a certain range of the ghost during hunts and events, your sanity is drained twice as fast. Yurei can also suddenly drop your sanity by 12,5% if you are nearby.

Ghosts with unusual speed during hunts:

• Hantu – this ghost’s speed depends on the temperature of the room. It is very fast in cold rooms, but notably slow in warm rooms. It also does not speed up when it sees a player. If the fuse box is off (= the heating is off) and in the outdoor maps (= understandable heating issues), it can be a fairly dangerous ghost.

• Jinn – if the fuse box is on and the Jinn spots you from afar, it will start running to you very fast, but will slow down once it gets closer to you.

• Raiju – very fast when near active electronic equipment (not household equipment, only things you bring in). Otherwise, it is normal speed. Unfortunately, you usually do have active equipment lying around in the ghost room, so this can definitely be a dangerous one.

• Revenant – if it doesn’t detect anyone, the Revenant walks at a snail pace. But once it detects someone (through line of sight, hearing or active equipment), this ghost immediately turns into a speed train! It will only start slowing down again once it reaches the place it last detected a player. No shame in dying to this ghost!

• The Twins – some hunts, you might notice the ghost is slightly faster than in other hunts. It is not significantly noticeable unless you are looking for it and this trait is generally not a threat, because the speeds are very close to normal speed.
  
• Moroi – At 50% sanity, it will have normal speed, but the less sanity you have, the faster this ghost is.

• Thaye – it start off very fast, but the more time you spend in near proximity of the ghost outside of hunts, the slower it will be during the hunts. Thaye can potentially go from Usain Bolt to an old grandma as the game progresses. It cannot speed up when seeing a player.

• Deogen – this is a very special ghost. Unlike all the others, it knows the location of the nearest player at all times and will sprint towards them. However, once it is within a few meters, Deogen will turn from a Ferrari into an old tractor. You can just slowly walk around with the ghost following you like a well-behaved pupper. Just don’t hide and don’t walk into a dead-end.

I want to play solo, but I’m too scared - what should I do?

When I first started playing the game, I was a big chicken. The first time I entered a real mission, I lasted less than 30 seconds inside the house. The ghost almost immediately decided to do a ghost event that included turning off the lights, closing the door and hissing at me – which made me run out of that house like me behind was on fire. However, the game was still less scary than a potential social interaction, so I still pushed myself to play alone. These are some tips on how to get more comfortable in the game (and yes, I admit unashamedly that I used all of them):

1) Use speakers instead of head/earphones. It will greatly reduce the creepiness of the sounds and help you distance yourself from them. Once you get more used to it, you can go back to using head/earphones – they are definitely the better option for the game, since you can easier tell the sound directions.

2) Go die. Tear off the band-aid. March into Tanglewood, go straight for the cursed item, trigger a hunt and wait for a ghostie hug to come. Just don’t take any additional items for this suicidal mission. If you end up having a summoning circle (which needs a lighter), or a bad deck of tarot cards, just reload. Alternatively, you can also set a custom difficulty and choose your cursed item. Repeat this a few times if you need, until you can do the whole thing without anxiety.

3) Turn up the brightness a bit, your game might be too dark. You can do so in settings.

4) Learn about the game. Knowing your enemy gives you confidence. This guide has pretty much everything you need to know to have as high chance of survival as possible (while not spoiling everything – because some players might enjoy having some things to figure out on their own), but if it is not enough for you, go check out more detailed information.

5) Watch streams and videos of other people playing the game. You can also learn more information about the ghosts or details on the game mechanics from them. Most importantly, you have a chance to learn the map layouts without risking your own neck.

Trophies and badges

The game gives you an opportunity to earn trophies and badges. Some of them are linked to seasonal events and cannot be earned after the event is closed (the trophy for Halloween 2022, Christmas Event 2022 or Easter Event 2023).

You will also see some players having special badges that show what level they were before the complete rehash of levels in August 2023.

The Apocalypse Challenge, on the other hand, can be done at any time. There are three trophies you can get: bronze, silver or gold.
To get these trophies, you must:

• play on singleplayer
  
• play on Sunny Meadows (must be the big version, not restricted)
  
• survive
  
• get the ghost type correct
  
• complete all objectives
  
• get a ghost photo

In addition to these conditions, you have to play on custom difficulty, with a certain minimum multiplier depending on the trophy you are going for. The exact settings do not matter, as long as you have the multiplier - you will see a bronze/silver/gold skull appear next to the number.

[Flutters]

Recommended custom difficulties settings when?

[Foxy7274]

Phasmophobia
What to do if you get an error Runtime error 203 at 5OOO88A8
What to do if Phasmophobia-Unity 2021.3.16f1_4016570cf34f error occurs??????

[M.]

The last part applies to me. I am 30 minutes in but too much of a chicken to even enter the training house.

[help]

thanks for this guide im new and this really helps

[SEATEK The_LEFTY]

Excellent Guide.

[Nikoss]

Great piece of information useful to even veterans in this game!Well done!

[Katze]

Really good guide!

[ItsRaven]

as a phasmo veteran i can confirm that this is all true and useful
thank you and goodbye