The Phasmophobia Long Guide

Full Phasmophobia Guide for Beginners and Intermediate players!
Includes basics, ghost details, map details, everything!

What is Phasmophobia?

Phasmophobia is an investigation / puzzle horror game. You play with up to 4 players co-op against "The Ghost". The investigations take place on many different maps, where you investigate many different kinds of ghosts each with unique abilities, using various pieces of equipment.

The Basics

Investigations are pretty simple at their core.

You start the game in the safehouse, where you group up with up to 3 other players, select investigations locations and difficulty to play on, buy equipment, and just hang out in general. Once you start an investigation, you and your buddies start in a van whose wall is filled on one side with equipment, and on the other side with information boards. You look for the room the ghost resides in, then use the equipment to find pieces of evidence. You can find 3 evidences to lock in which ghost is haunting the place, or combine unique ghost abilities and 0-2 evidences to otherwise know which ghost it is. There are additional objectives, a Bone, and pictures that you can complete, find and/or make for more money.

The Safehouse

The Safehouse is your base of operations. Here you create lobbies to group up with other players, select investigations, and buy equipment. Pressing spacebar while walking in the safehouse brings you to the menu:

While in the menu, you can press the left arrow to go to the map slection screen, and the right arrow to go to the equipment screen.

On the map selection screen, any player can select a map. If two players vote on different maps, the game will select one of them with a 50/50 chance. If a map receives more votes than the other maps, it will be guaranteed to be selected.

On the equipment screen, you can manage your equipment. In the shop, you can purchase or sell items, while in the loadout screen you can see which items have been added to the truck, and which items you own which you can add to the truck. You will never lose any items, unless the following happens: You added items to the truck, and in the very next mission, you die. In that specific case, all the items YOU added to the truck, are lost, whether they were used, or not. Items OTHER players added to the truck are NOT lost, unless they also died.

In the middle menu screen, you have the overview of what map(s) have been selected, and what items have been added to the van. You can also see all players in the lobby and their levels and ready status. To invite others to the lobby, copy the lobby code in the top right of the menu by pressing the copy icon button. Note you must be in multiplayer mode for this to be possible. You can also adjust the difficulty by pressing the edit icon button next to your listed difficulty.

To start the game, have all players ready up with the ready up button, then have the lobby host press start.

Game Settings

Controls:

Buttons to keep default:

Basic movement (WASD) - As simple as it may be, it's still worth pointing out you walk with the WASD keys.

Sprint and Crouch (Shift/Ctrl) - Key survival tools. Sprinting allows you to escape hunts, while crouch lets you hide behind certain objects.

Object interaction (LMB) - This is the button to open doors with, turn lights on and off with, etc.

Equipment activations (RMB) - This is the button to activate your equipment with. Take photos, turn on EMF readers and thermometers, light lighters, candles and smudges, etc.

Item pickup (E) - Lets you pick up items, including equipment, but also items found around the house.

Equipment swapping (Q) - This button allows you to cycle through your 3 equipment inventory slots.

Equipment placing (F) - Holding this button while holding a placeable equipment creates a preview of where it will be placed, allowing you to rotate it with LMB and RMB. Releasing the button places the object. You can tap it to place an item quicker.

Equipment throwing (G) - Pressing this button drops your currently held equipment and throws it forward slightly.

Flashlight toggle (T) - Turns your flashlight on or off while you're not holding it out.

Buttons to consider rebinding:

Journal (J) - You use the Journal to write down evidence as well as check pictures and objective completions. Put this somewhere easily accessible. For example, Z.

Local push to talk (V) - This allows you to use push to talk as default talking mode. This is generally good as it protects you during hunts - more on that later - put this on an easily accessible button, like a mouse thumb button.

Global push to talk (B) - Your radio,allowing you to talk to anyone from any distance. It gets blocked by the ghost during ghost events and hunts, however.

Graphics Settings

WIP

Audio Settings

WIP

Other Settings

WIP

Phasmophobia Terms

Basic terms to remember while playing

Ghost

At the start of an investigation, a ghost is randomly generated. This includes a name, age, visual model, ghost room and ghost type.

Ghost room

There is one room in the building where the ghost stays in the most. This is the Ghost Room. It's important to find which room it is as early as possible as it helps with the investigation immensely.

Interaction

Whenever the ghost performs any action, like touching a door or window, turning a light or the breaker on or off, or throwing an object, this is an interaction. You see an interaction spike on the activity monitor whenever this happens. Interactions are essential for gathering evidences, so always try to listen to sounds that are out of the ordinary, which can signal an interaction.

Ghost event

Generally jumpscares, ghost events are actually quite harmless. At most, they can only drain some of your sanity. See the Hunts vs Events section for a breakdown how to recognize one. There are a few types of ghost events:

• The ghost forms a mist ball, which moves towards a player, before making a loud hissing noise. This rules out an Oni, as they cannot do this ghost event.
  
• The ghost materializes and walks toward a player.
  
• The ghost materializes and stands still while singing.
  
• The ghost materializes and proceeds to break all lights in the room.
  
• The ghost turns the lights in the room red while making loud noises.

When a ghost materializes, it can either be fully visible, see-through, or only cast a shadow. The ghost can also close doors inside the room, but cannot close an exit door unless the ghost is a Yurei. Lastly, ghost events are not really tied to the location of the ghost, as the ghost generally teleports to the nearest player as it performs the event.

Hunt

This is the only moment where the ghost can kill a player. The building entrance closes and locks, preventing you from leaving, after which the ghost will start to roam the building. If it sees a player, it will chase the player. If the ghost touches a player, that player is killed and the hunt ends. After a hunt ends, there is a 25 second cooldown before another hunt can start. Hunts generally start at an average player sanity of below 50%. During a hunt, players should turn off or drop any electronics, including their flashlight, else the ghost can detect the player without seeing them. Players should mute themselves for the same reason. After a hunt, there is a 25 second cooldown until there is another hunt, unless it is a Demon, which has a cooldown of 20 seconds.

Evidence

EMF-5, D.O.T.S., Ghost Writing, Ghost Orbs, Fingerprints, Spirit Box and Freezing Temperatures are the 7 primary pieces of evidence. Every ghost has an unique combination of 3 of them. There are also secondary pieces of evidence in the form of ghost abilities, such as the Banshee's Scream, or the Obake's 6-finger fingerprint, which count as "Evidence", indicating which ghost it is. Note that the Mimic can fake Ghost Orbs as a fourth evidence, and can fake unique ghost abilities.

Cursed Possessions

There are seven special items, of which one spawns in the building during each investigation. These can aid in your investigation, and should generally be looked for, even though using them often costs a decent bit of sanity. Each possession has a fixed spawn location in each location. The possessions are Ouiji Board, Vodoo Doll, Tarrot Cards, Haunted Mirror, Summoning Circle, Music Box and Monkey Paw. You can make a picture of them for money.

Throwable Items

Random items found in the building, such as shoes, cutlery, plates, cups, etc. A ghost can throw these items, leaving EMF evidence. They do not leave fingerprints on these items.

Bone

During each investigation, a random human bone spawns somewhere in the building. This can range from a rib cage to a foot. You can take a picture of it and then pick it up for money.

Looping

During a hunt, sometimes hiding is not viable. Experienced players will instead opt to play ring around the rosie with the ghost, keeping a table, kitchen island, car, couch, or any viable object between themselves and the ghost to keep the ghost occupied. This is an advanced technique and not recommended for new players.

Hiding spots

While anything that prevents the ghost from seeing you can be used as a hiding spot, the game generates hiding spots for each investigation. These can be lockers, closets, stacked boxes, wooden boards, stacked furniture, or even a wall of barrels. Learn where each possible hiding spot is on a map, and remember to check which ones spawned in so you always got a hiding spot during hunts.

Professional/Pro

Standard difficulty most players play on. Most of this guide is written using Professional as its "default". It is not significantly more difficult than the lower difficulties, so it's recommended to play on this difficulty even as a newer player, unless you struggle with dying a lot.

Nightmare/NM

The hardest standard difficulty. Nightmare introduces certain exceptions to the standard game rules, including ghosts hiding one evidence, and allowing ghosts to kill multiple players during a single hunt. It is not adviced to play on this difficulty until you have a basic grasp of the game.

The Journal

Basics:
The Journal is your workhorse for basically everything. It tracks additional objectives, it tracks photos, it tracks what evidence you tell it you found. It's essentially to properly use it. It has a few tabs that contain the following:
- Home: Table of contents
- Items: Info on cursed objects
- Overview: Name of the ghost, and additional objectives
- Photos: List the pictures you have taken, as well as the quality of them.
- Evidence: Shows what evidences you have found, as well as which ghost it can be based on the evidences you have found or ruled out.
- Ghosts: Info on ghost types.
- Pause menu: Options/Settings, as well as the option to leave an investigation early.

Advanced:
On nightmare, if you have found 0 or 1 evidences, but know for sure it is not two certain evidences, you can check those two evidences as if the ghost has those two evidences, then cross off any ghost that shows up. After all, the ghost can only hide up to one evidence, not two.

Essential Equipment Part 1

Short introduction to the essential equipment for a beginning ghost hunter. Do note there are some exceptions to how all of these work, but this is what you need to know to get started.

Each investigation by default only gives 1 copy of each default equipment. To have access to the other equipment, you need to add them to the item pool. Whenever you add items to the item pool, those items become tied to you. This means that if you leave the game mid-investigation, the items despawn for every other player. It also means that if you die, you lose those items. There are no other ways to lose your items, so as long as you stay alive, you keep the equipment you put into the pool. This even counts for single use equipment like smudge sticks or sanity pills, which are refunded at the end of an investigation if you stay alive. If multiple players put items into the item pool, a player who dies loses their share of equipment, but the other players do not lose anything.

Most of the time, as etiquette, either the richest player, or the lobby host, provides the equipment for the entire team.

(Strong) Flashlights

Basics:
You get one normal flashlight for free. Strong flashlights are direct upgrades with better visibility. Essential for finding your way around the house. RMB while held, or otherwise T, to turn on or off. The light stays on as you swap to other equipment. Always turn your flashlight off if a hunt starts.

Advanced:
You can drop your flashlight after finding the ghost room to free up an additional item slot, letting you carry more equipment into the ghost room from the van. You can also drop your flashlight while it's still on to light your path as you run during a hunt, without it affecting detection at all. Lastly, you can only carry up to one flashlight of any type, so sometimes you can leave your strong flashlight, then come back with a weaker flashlight, to combine the above two techniques.

EMF Reader (EMF-5)

Basics:
Small remote sized device with an almost rainbow colored front end. RMB to turn on/off. You can turn it on and throw it on the ground as well. Whenever a ghost does any interaction, holding the EMF close to it will cause the device to light up and emit a beeping noise. If the ghost has EMF-5 evidence, it will randomly give EMF-5 instead of normal EMF levels 25% of the time.

Advanced:
In a way, the activity board is an extention of the EMF Reader. Whenever a ghost interacts with something, the activity board will show for how long that interaction can be detected with an EMF-5 Reader, as well as the estimated strength of the EMF Reading. As such, if there is an exact +5 spike on the activity board, it is likely to be an EMF-5 reading, unless it's a ghost event. You should also expect a similar -5 drop roughly 30 seconds later when the interaction can no longer be detected. This can help suggest EMF-5, but you will still have to manually confirm it.

Putting more throwable items in the ghost room or smudging the ghost can help with getting enough interactions for EMF-5.

EMF-2 is always the ghost touching things. EMF-3 is the ghost throwing things, and EMF-4 is a ghost event.

D.O.T.S. Projector

Basics:
Small black device that emits a sphere of green light dots when placed. If the ghost interacts with it, it results in a silhouette of the ghost swiftly running through the field. This can be seen both on cameras as with the naked eye. Patience may be needed to obtain this evidence, but it can be obtained from the safety of the Van.

Advanced:
The D.O.T.S. can be used to figure out what ghost model the ghost has, as it used that ghost model for the silhouette. This can help in case the ghost is the child, which would make it harder to spot during hunts otherwise. Generally you can leave focusing on DOTS evidence for last as you can obtain it from the van.

UV Light / Glowsticks (Fingerprints)

Basics:
Whenever a ghost touches a door, light switch, window, cooler lids, picnic tables and campsite poles, it will either always or never show fingerprints under UV light. Fingerprints cannot be seen without UV light. If a ghost touches a door, check both sides with an UV light or glowstick. If you see no fingerprints, you can rule out fingerprints.

You also need UV light to make footsteps from salt show up. These do not count as fingerprints.

Advanced:
Obake has a 3 in 4 chance to give fingerprints instead of guaranteed fingerprints. They also have a 1 in 6 chance to give a 6-finger handprint instead of a normal fingerprint.

Whenever you find the ghost room, take note of any doors or windows in the room. Put glowsticks close to those objects as soon as possible, as sometimes you get unlucky and the ghost touches that door without you noticing. The glow of the glowstick will sometimes help you out and give you the fingerprints you would otherwise have missed. Throwing the glowstick in such a way it stays upright up against a window may require some practice.

You can also use glowsticks are a light source when you cannot use electronics, as it itself does not count like an electronic device, similar to a lit candle.

Videocamera (Ghost Orbs)

Basics:
You can either hold the camera by hand, place it down on furniture, or put it on a tripod. If the ghost has Ghost Orbs, you will be able to find them in the Ghost Room by enabling the night vision mode of the camera, and turning off the lights in the room. They are small floating white orbs. They generally appear once every 10-30 seconds. Be careful not to mistake snow from outside as ghost orbs. You can also use the camera to look at a placed DOTS.

Advanced:
Note that the camera is an electronic device that cannot be turned off. As such, always swap to another item or drop it during a hunt.

DOTS are more visible with the night vision mode turned off.

You can use the night vision mode as a makeshift flashlight to navigate through the building. It is best to hold the camera by hand, without tripod, for this, as it gives the largest picture to look through this way.

Book (Ghost Writing)

Basics:
The book must be placed down, not thrown, to be put in an open state. The ghost may interact with it to write in it, or throw it. If the ghost is able to write in the book, it MUST do so before throwing it, so if it is thrown without being written in, the ghost does not have writing. The ghost can only write in each book once.

Advanced:
It's highly recommended to remove throwable items from the vicinity of the book to increase the chance of the ghost interacting with it. The ghost also must be able to reach it as it roams, so do not place it in unreachable places like the middle of a large bed.

Ghost writing is an easy source of 3 star pictures, remember to take them when a ghost writes in the book.

Essential Equipment Part 2

Spirit Box

Basics:
Small radio looking device. When turned on, you can ask questions like "where are you" or "are you friendly". If the game recognizes your question, the cross on the right of the display will light up. For the ghost to respond, you must generally be alone in a room, with the lights off, and the ghost must be either within 3m or you, or you must be in the ghost room. If the ghost responds, the ghost symbol will light up.

If you do not have a microphone, you will get selectable questions for the spirit box instead.

Advanced:
If you successfully get a spirit box response, the first thing you should do is check if Moroi is still a possible ghost. If so, leave the house and inspect your sanity, noting your lowest sanity as it fluctuates. After that, bring a lit candle and a lighter into the house. The candle should prevent sanity drain, but if it's a Moroi, its curse will drain your sanity despite the candle. Check your sanity after ~20 seconds to confirm (Sanity drained by ~10%) or deny (No drain) Moroi.

After ruling out Moroi, you can do a Deogen test by repeatedly asking it questions. Deogens will sometimes respond by heavy breathing, but it must be close to you for that response. For that reason, always ask where the ghost is question during this test. If you don't get heavy breathing after ~10 short distance responses, it's unlikely to be a Deogen.

Spirit box can respond to you if it's turned on while lying on the ground.

If you are in the ghost room, but the ghost if more than 3m away from you (regardless of same room or not), asking where it is will yield in a "Far" or "Away" response, rather than the normal "Close", "Right behind you" or "Next to you" response.

Thermometer (Freezing Temps)

Basics:
The thermometer is like a laser pointer. Point it at a wall and it measures the temperature of the wall. As such, you generally want to point it at your feet. Freezing temperatures are <0 degrees Celcius or <32 degrees Fahrenheit. 0.1 degrees is cold, but not freezing.

You don't actually need a thermometer to know it's freezing, however. If you ever see your character breathe out a small cloud of frozen breath, the room's temperature is freezing.

You can also use the thermometer to find the ghost room, if the breaker is turned on. The coldest room in the building is generally the ghost room.

Advanced:
The ghost room should never rise above 10 degrees Celcius. As this, and 0 degrees for freezing, are easy to remember values, playing with Celcius enabled is recommended.

Starting with a thermometer is not adviced if the breaker starts as off, as it takes 3-5 minutes for rooms to warm up. Is it as a backup tool for finding the ghost room if your main method fails.

Picture Camera

Basics:
While not useful in figuring out what ghost you're dealing with, the picture camera is a great source of income. Taking pictures of interactions, cursed objects or the bone will yield a nice income boost. You get up to 3 cameras, with 5 pictures each, but you are capped at 10 pictures in the book.

Advanced:
You get more money for a higher variety of pictures. You also get more money for higher quality pictures.

If you get 10 3-star pictures, find the bone, and complete all objectives, you also get a perfect investigation bonus.

You can only take one ghost picture. Any other pictures will ignore the ghost.

You can have multiple players each take a picture of a dead body and it will count separately. This does not work for other kinds of pictures.

Always crouch when taking a picture of the summoning circle to guarantee a 3-star picture.

Protective Equipment

Crucifix

Basics:
Prevents hunts from starting if the ghost is in range of it as it tries to hunt. Hold F to while placing to get a preview of the effective range. If it prevents a hunt for the first time, a chunk is burned off. On the second/last prevention, the entire cross burns up.

Advanced:
Both half burned and fully burned crucifixes can be photographed for money, giving seperate rewards.

Just because a crucifix prevented a hunt once, does not mean it's guaranteed to do it again. The ghost moves while not hunting and may move outside the crucifix range.

The crucifix range is 3m in radius, 6m in diameter. Against demons, this extends to 5m in radius or 10m in diameter.

Candle

Basics:
While holding a lit candle, your sanity cannot drain. As most ghosts can only hunt if the team average is below 50%, this is an effective way to prevent hunts.

Advanced:
A candle is recommended over a flashlight on large maps like Brownstone High School, Prison, or Sunny Meadows. These maps often don't have good light coverage, leading to high sanity loss while you struggle to find the ghost room in the larger buildings.

Smudge Stick

Basics:
The smudge has two functions.

Outside of hunts, it can be activated near the ghost to increase its chance of interacting with items, and to prevent hunts for 30 seconds.

During hunts, it can be activated near the ghost to make the ghost blind and harmless for 6 seconds, allowing you to walk straight through it and get to a hiding spot safely. The ghost walks in random directions while blind.

Advanced:
It can be wise to leave a smudge stick on the ground nearby, so you can grab it during an emergency while also keeping inventory space open. Sadly this cannot be done with the lighter as the lighter is too small to be picked up quickly.

Smudge sticks do not care who activates the smudge stick and who is close to the ghost. These can be different players. As such, if you know your team well, a player in the van can save a player inside the building by burning a smudge inside the van while the player inside the building is close to the ghost.

During hunts, the only moment it checks whether a player is in range is on the first frame of activation. The burning animation does not mean anything. The smudge stick can be dropped right after activation.

Lighter

Basics:
Essential for Smudge and Candle. While having a lighter in your inventory, you can press RMB while holding a smudge stick or candle to activate it. You can also light a lighter and press F while aiming at a placed candle to light the candle.

Advanced:
You can also light candles you find in the building, and they also prevent sanity drain.

Lighting a summoning circle candle drains 10% of your sanity. If your sanity is <10% while lighting the last one, you'll have 0% sanity as the circle completes, resulting in the loss of the 3 second lockdown of the ghost, starting the hunt immediately. It's adviced to have one player light 4 candles, and have another player light the 5th.

Sanity Pills

Basics:
These pills restore 25% of your sanity upon use. You cannot go above 100% sanity.

Advanced:
In theory, you can use these, in combination with a 4-player team, to prevent a hunt nearly indefinitely. If two players maintain 100% sanity through staying in the van, or through a candle, the remaining two players only have to maintain an above 0% sanity to prevent normal ghosts from hunting.

Sanity Pills cure a Moroi curse.

Support Equipment

These equipments are generally not essential for new players, so I will forego the basics vs advanced explanation split.

Salt

The salt shaker contains 3 uses for placing a salt pile, after which the shaker itself becomes useless. A salt pile is mostly a picture obtaining tool, but also a way to figure out where the ghost is. If the ghost physically walks over a salt pile, the salt pile gets stepped on, unless the ghost is a Wraith. When stepping on a salt pile, the ghost leaves UV footsteps for a few seconds as it continues to walk. You can make pictures of the salt pile, or the UV footsteps, to obtain footprint pictures. For the salt piles specifically, each player can make a picture of the same pile, and it will still count, similar to dead body pictures. This does not work for the UV footsteps, and UV footsteps themselves can be a bit finicky due to UV light being required, so it's generally advised to just make pictures of the stepped on salt piles.

Parabolic Microphone

This unique tool is used to find the rough location of the ghost in large maps. By turning it on, it can detect sounds in the direction you point it at, through any obstacles or walls. As such, in large maps, you can easily discern whether the ghost is on the general left, right, up, down, etc, side of the map. It is also used to hear ghost sounds, which is relevant for the Myling and Banshee ghosts.

Motion Sensor

The motion sensor is an underappreciated tool. When placed, it will light up if a ghost walks past it. Placing two next to each other also shows the direction the ghost is moving in, which is a great assist in determining where the ghost is going.

Sound Sensor

A less useful tool, the sound sensor fulfills a similar role to the parabolic microphone. The difference between the two is that the microphone checks for a cylinder shape in front of it, while the sensor tests for a sphere around it, and the sound sensor also needs to be physically placed in the area you want to check, and needs to be monitored from the van, As such, most players use the microphone instead.

Head Mounted Camera

This tool is only useful in multiplayer. It allows you to carry a camera round on your head, which does not count as an electric device, and does not take up any inventory slot. However, the player carrying it cannot see through it, instead requiring a second player to view through it from the van. It can be useful sometimes, but generally is ignored by most players.

Van Equipment

This is equipment built into the Van, as opposed to added by the players.

Objective Board

This board shows basic information regarding your current investigation. This includes the name of the ghost, whether you need to be alone in the ghost room, pictures you have made, as well as additional bonus objectives, which will be checked off upon completion. All of this info can also be found in your journal, under overview and photos.

Location Map

This map gives you a generic layout of the investigation area, with the map's name, as well as buttons to switch between floors. You can see the location of other players in the building as well, but not the location of the ghost. If enabled, you can also see the position of the breaker on this map.

Sanity Monitor

This monitor shows the individual sanity of each player, as well as the team's average sanity. The board's display will always fluctuate +-2 sanity points of a player's actual sanity. Ghosts use the team average sanity to determine whether they will hunt or not, unless it's a Banshee.

Activity Monitor

The activity monitor is an underrated piece of equipment. It shows activities performed by the ghost in the last minute, with the strength of the activity going vertically, and the time since the interaction started going horizontally. If there is a spike of +5 or drop of -5, this can indicate a likely EMF-5 interaction. If there is a spike that goes to activity strength 10, means a likely ghost event or hunt.

Sound Monitor

The least useful monitor, here you can monitor the sound feedback from sound sensors you placed inside the investigation area.

Computer

The computer allows you to remotely view any cameras. Pressing left mouse button on the keyboard turns night vision on/off, while pressing the mouse cycles through the available cameras. Any cameras from the house itself are fed through this monitor as well, but are generally not very useful. Instead, the computer is used to remotely check for D.O.T.S. and Ghost Orb evidence, without risk. Note that for Ghost Orbs, night vision must be enabled, but for D.O.T.S. it does not matter whether it is enabled or not.

Cursed Possessions

There are 7 cursed possessions in Phasmophobia. During each investigation, one of them is randomly selected and placed at its fixed spawn location on the map. Each cursed possession has one possible place for it to spawn in each map. Here is the full breakdown of all cursed possessions:

Haunted Mirror

The Haunted Mirror serves as a ghost-finding tool. When holding the mirror, press right mouse button to start looking into it, and drop it or press right mouse button again to stop looking into it. While looking into it, you see a first-person view from inside the ghost room. Using map knowledge, you may recognize the room, letting you immediately locate the ghost. The cost of using the mirror is 20% sanity for the first two seconds which is consumed upon activation, with an additional 10% sanity per second drain after 2 seconds. If your sanity hits 0 while looking through the mirror, it breaks, starting a cursed hunt.

Music Box

The music box serves as a ghost-finding tool and a ghost picture tool. When holding it, press right mouse button to activate it. While active, it drains 2.5% sanity of any player within 3m radius of it and it cannot be deactivated, though you can place it on the floor by pressing F. While it is playing, the ghost is teleported into its room and starts to sing. You can use this song to locate where the ghost is. If the music box is closer than 10m to the ghost, the ghost starts a ghost event, becoming visible and walking towards the box. Throwing the box on the floor, letting the ghost too close to the box, or letting the ghost walk 5m during the ghost event, all cause the music box to close, ending the song early, and starting a cursed hunt. Hitting 0% sanity causes the box to close as well, but starts a normal hunt. The music box does not prevent a normal hunt from starting during any moment, including during the ghost event.

Ouiji Board

The Ouiji Board is a ghost-finding tool and information tool. You can ask it questions and it will spell out the answer using the letters and numbers on the board. Each question takes 10-60% sanity depending on the question. If your sanity hits 0% after asking a question, or if you ask the board to play hide and seek, the board breaks and a cursed hunt starts. In the case of hide and seek, the board does count down from 5 before the hunt starts, if you have above 50% sanity.

Summoning Circle

The circle is a simple pentagram with 5 candles, being solely a ghost picture tool. Lighting a candle drains 16% sanity. Upon lighting the final candle, if you still have any sanity left, the ghost will be locked in place in the middle of the circle for 5 seconds, after which a cursed hunt starts. If you have no sanity left, it will hunt immediately instead.

Tarrot Cards

The tarrot cards are a set of 10 cards with randomized effects. Depending on the card drawn, here are the following effects. In the case of player affecting effects, it only affects the player who drew the card:

• 20% - Wheel of Fortune: Depending on the burn color, green is +25% sanity, red is -25% sanity.
  
• 5% - Sun: Sanity to 100%.
  
• 5% - Moon: Sanity to 0%.
  
• 20% - Tower: Forced interaction.
  
• 10% - Devil: Ghost event.
  
• 10% - Death: Hunt.
  
• 10% - Hermit: Lock the ghost in ghost room for 1 minute. Does not affect hunts.
  
• 2% - High Priestess: Revives a random player. If no player died, next death respawns instead.
  
• 1% - Hanged man: Instantly kills the player. Will always turn into a fool if friendly ghost is enabled.
  
• 17% - The fool. Shows a different card, then switches to fool before burning. Has no effect. During a hunt, becomes 100% chance to draw instead.

Vodoo Doll

Vodoo doll is a ghost finding tool. Activating it while holding it pulls a random pin among its 10 pins. Unless the pin is a heart, each pin drains 10% sanity and forces an interaction. If your sanity hits 0, or the heart is pulled, a cursed hunt starts.

Monkey Paw

Allows you to wish for certain effects, each having specific drawbacks. Each wish can only be used once, and the paw has 3-5 wishes, depending on the difficulty. How many it has left is indicated by the amount of raised fingers:

• I wish to see the ghost: Imitates a summoning circle. Locks the ghost in place for 5 seconds near the player, then starts a cursed hunt. The player receives a blinding effect.
  
• I wish for activity: Ghost activity is temporarily increased, but the breaker breaks permanently and the front door locks for 2 minutes.
  
• I wish for sanity: Set the sanity of all players to 50%, but the ghost may change rooms and passive sanity drain while standing in darkness is permanently increased.
  
• I wish to be safe: Creates a hiding spot in your room, if possible, but breaks all the lights in your room. Has no positive effect if you already have all available hiding spots in your room, or if there are no possible hiding spots in your room.
  
• I wish to leave: Only works during a hunt. Opens the exit doors, but the player's vision will darken and they will move very slowly, for 5 seconds.
  
• I wish for life: Revives a random dead teammate, but has a chance to kill a random player in return. Nothing happens if there is no dead player.
  
• I wish for knowledge: Crosses out a random evidence the ghost does not have, alongside all ghosts that are tied to that evidence. The player's vision darkens, their audio muffles, and the ghost will start a cursed hunt near the player.
  
• I wish for sun/rain/clear sky/fog/snow changes the weather, drains 30% sanity.
  
• I wish for anything: Applies a random wish.

Ghost Rules

At the start of an investigation, a Ghost's traits are randomized.

Gender:
50/50 Male/Female

Time since it died:
50-1000 years ago

Age:
2-90 years old. Does not affect visual ghost model.

Spirit Box responsiveness:
It can talk to anyone, or only players who are alone. 50/50. It's generally best to assume they can only talk to players who are alone. This does not affect ghost activity.

Name:
Random first and last name.

Ghost visual model:
This visual model cannot change once selected. During ghost events, shadow or see through variants of the model may appear, and during hunts, it may use various postures, but it always uses the same posture throughout any given hunt. Obake changes ghost model or posture at least once each hunt.

Finding the Ghost Room

Finding the Ghost Room can be done through various methods, with some being more accurate, others more reliable, and others simply being faster.

EMF

The ghost gets teleported to the ghost room when you open the front door for the first time, after which it will start doing interactions. With some luck you'll hear those interactions, and you can home in on them using the EMF. Fastest method, but requires some skill and isn't 100% accurate or reliable.

Thermometer

Generally, the ghost room is the coldest room in the house. Issue is, that the building will be cold if the breaker starts as turned off. As such, you need to wait 3-5 minutes before using this method. Any rooms colder than 10 degrees Celcus could potentially be the ghost room, or close to the ghost room.

Parabolic Microphone

The ParaMic is unique in that its sound dectection has effectively wallhacks. You can point it in any direction and if the ghost does some interaction within a small radius cone in that direction, it will be picked up by the mic. Excellent for large buildings to give a rough indicator as to in which rough direction the ghost is, but not great for figuring out the exact room.

Sound Sensor

Sound sensors work basically identically as the ParaMic, except they have a spherical radius, instead of a aimed cone. Place all 4 around the building to get a rough idea of where the ghost is.

Displaced items

Sometimes you may noticed items being displayed. For example, a cup thrown on the floor. This is an excellent indicator the ghost was there at one point. If this happens early enough, it's likely that room is the Ghost Room.

Ghost Orbs

Not very consistent, but if you are lucky enough to see ghost orbs, you immediately know the Ghost Room as they can only spawn in said room.

Spirit Box

Also not consistent, but if you are lucky enough to get a spirit box response, you are either near, or inside the Ghost Room. Asking "where are you" and getting a "Far" or "Away" response confirms you are in the ghost room, making that question the best question to spam.

Ouija board

The Ouija board can give you the name of the Ghost Room at the cost of 50% sanity by asking what the ghost's favorite room is, or where it is. Consult the location maps to see what room has what name.

Music Box

When you activate the Music Box, the ghost gets teleported to the ghost room and starts singing. Other players can go towards that singing noise to find the ghost. If the ghost is within 10m of the music box, it will start walking towards the music box. If it reaches the box, a cursed hunt starts.

Cursed Mirror

The cursed mirror requires experience to be used well. When activating it, it drains 20% sanity immediately, then starts draining 10% sanity per second after 2 seconds. During this time, it will give you a rotating camera-like view from inside the ghost room. Take note of the wall's color, any paintings or other objects of interest, then deactivate the mirror. With enough experience, you will be able to recognize a room immediately upon use.

Vodoo Doll

The vodoo doll can provide up to 9 forced interactions where the ghost MUST interact with some nearby object, with an increasing 1 in 10 chance to get a cursed hunt instead. Use with caution, combine with the EMF method to find the room.

Methods that are not good for finding the ghost room

Ghost events often have the ghost teleport to a player and can happen anywhere.

Starting locations of hunts can often be from a roaming location, and can happen anywhere.

Hunt Rules

Hunts have strict rules.

When can a Hunt Start

A ghost will attempt every few seconds to start a hunt. When it does, it checks the average sanity of all players (unless it's a Banshee, which checks the sanity of 1 specific player). Whether a player is inside our outside does not matter. If the verage sanity is above the ghost's hunting treshold, the hunt attempt is aborted. For most ghosts, this is 50%. If you experience a first hunt that is significantly above or below this treshold, consult the special hunt behavior section.

If the sanity is below the ghost's sanity treshold, the ghost will check whether it is in range of a crucifix. If it is in range, the crucifix is damaged and the hunt is aborted. Otherwise, the hunt begins.

The Hunt Begins

When a hunt begins, the ghost will start making its hunt sound and closes all entrances to the building, locking them shut. Those doors remain locked until the hunt ends. During the duration of the hunt, room lights cannot be turned on or off. When a hunt ends, any lights that were turned on switch off.

The ghost cannot move immediately after starting the hunt. Even though it makes its hunt noise, revealing where it is, it will remain locked in that location for the grace period duration. On Amateur, this is 5 seconds. Intermediate, 4 seconds. Professional, 3 seconds. Nightmare, 2 seconds. Insanity, 1 second. If a cursed hunt is started, or has happened before during this investigation, the grace period becomes 1 second regardless of difficulty and the hunt duration is increased. After the grace period, the ghost starts moving and becomes visible

During The Hunt

As the ghost moves, it has a constant movement speed. You can measure this speed by measuring the time between each footstep you hear. The ghost will by default choose random waypoints to walk towards and roam around the house this way. Due to the way it does this, it naturally walks into large rooms more often than it would walk into small rooms, and it often walks through connecting hallways when going from room to room this way.

While the ghost walks, it makes nearby electronics malfunction. It does so in a 10m radius around it.

If the ghost gets line of sight with a player, or if it detects handheld electronics or hears a player talk within 10m from it, it will abandon its roaming behavior and walk towards that player. If the player breaks line of sight or turns off the equipment, the ghost will move towards the spot it last detected the player, after which it resumes the aforementioned waypoint roaming if it does not get line of sight with a player upon reaching that last known location.

If a ghost detected a player or killed a player, the location of that player is remembered. When the next hunt starts, there is a 50% chance for the ghost to choose that location as its first roaming waypoint. If it does not do so, that remembered location is discarded.

The Hunt Ends

After a hunt ends, there is a 25 second (or 20 in case of a Demon) cooldown period before the next hunt can begin, allowing players some breathing room. All lights in the building are turned off, and the exit doors unlock.

Surviving Hunts

There's a bunch of elements that help with survivability, staying calm, and just being more methodical with the game.

Differentiating hunts vs ghost events

Ghost event: Light in room switches OFF. Ghost can MOVE and is visible IMMEDIATELY. Front door MAY close but will NEVER lock.

Hunt: Lights that are on STAY on and off STAYS off. They CANNOT be turned on or off. Front door closes and LOCKS. Ghost cannot MOVE and stays INVISIBLE, but can be HEARD, until the grace period ends.

Helps against unneeded panic. If you force yourself to rationally think about whether it's a hunt or not, you are also less likely to panic whenever it IS a hunt.

Knowing your hiding spots

Hiding spots can be anything that blocks line of sight with the ghost. Preferably in corners so that it's not likely for the ghost to roam into line of sight, or behind doors. The main hiding spots are LOCKERS, CLOSETS, BOXES and MAKESHIFT WALLS (the little fold open walls that people dress behind, walls made by cabinets, etc). Other hiding spots are cars, cooking platforms, washing machines, cabinets and even couches. It's recommended to find nearby hiding spots and keep them in mind as you investigate. If you're on a small map, you can even map out all the possible hiding spots.

Keep your electronics off

As soon as a hunt starts, you have until the grace period ends to turn off your electronics. If you don't turn them off, the ghost can detect you from significantly further away and does not need line of sight. This also extends to your voice. Push to talk is recommended if you can't turn off your microphone quickly.

Keep room lights on

Room lights help with navigation when you don't have your flashlight. They also signal the end of the hunt as all lights turn off when the hunt ends. It also helps against passive sanity drain from being in the dark as you wait out the hunt. There's no downside to keeping them on.

Listen where the ghost is coming from

At the start of a hunt, the ghost can't move, but makes noise. So you can start moving away from the ghost immediately and towards the nearest hiding spot you identified in the direction away of the ghost.

Minimalize line of sight

The ghost generally speeds up as it has line of sight with you. It's often worth breaking line of sight earlier even if it means you have to take a slightly longer path to safety, to keep the ghost slow. This is during hunts.

Prepare smudge sticks

If your best nearby hiding spot is for example a kitchen cooking platform, store a smudge stick on the ground at the hiding spot, and carry around a lighter. This brings you carrying capacity down from 3 to 2, but it's still better than bringing it down to 1. Having a smudge stick is always the best safety measure as you can run through a smudged ghost. Generally a lighter is too small to quickly pick up when you need one, but a smudge is pretty big. It's also worth noting that in the current version, activating a smudge stick will smudge the ghost if ANY player is close to the ghost. It does not have to be the player who lit the smudge. A player must be close enough to the ghost on activation of the smudge, even though the smudge burns for a while, it's only checked on the frame you activate the smudge.

Practice with longer grace periods

You can select a power difficulty, or use custom settings to increase the grace period. This lets you practice in relative safety, giving up to 5 seconds to hide. You can bring it down once you feel you get better at the game.

Special Hunt Behavior

Hunt Sanity Treshold

If the ghost hunts at unusually high or low sanity, check this cheat sheet of hunting tresholds:

• Banshee uses the sanity of its target instead of the team average.
  
• Demon has a 70% treshold and the unique ability to rarely hunt at any sanity.
  
• Deogen has a 40% treshold.
  
• Mare has a 60% treshold if the light of the room the ghost is in is turned off, and 40% if that light is on.
  
• Onryo has a 60% treshold.
  
• Raiju has a 65% treshold if there are electronics nearby, 50% if there are no electronics
  
• Shade has a 35% treshold and can only start hunting if there are no players in the same room.
  
• Thaye has a 75% treshold without aging, 15% after completely aged.
  
• Yokai has a 80% treshold if a player talks or makes loud noise near the ghost, or 50% if there's silence.

Hunt Speed

If the ghost has an unusual walking speed during a hunt, check this cheat sheet of ghost speeds. Note that most ghosts speed up over time as you maintain line of sight with them.

• Deogen is fast while far away, very slow when nearby.
  
• Hantu is fast in cold rooms, slow in warm rooms.
  
• Jinn has default normal speed, is fast when in line of sight while the breaker is on.
  
• Moroi is sightly slower at ~50% sanity, normal speed at ~40% sanity, fast at ~25% sanity and very fast at ~0% sanity.
  
• Raiju has default normal speed, is fast near electronics.
  
• Revenant has default slow speed, is very fast when in line of sight of a player.
  
• Thaye is fast when it hasn't aged, and slow when it has aged a few times.
  
• The Mimic can mimic any ghost hunting speed.
  
• The Twins are slow if the main ghost hunts, and fast if the second ghost hunts.

Other Hunt Quirks

• Banshee can only kill its target player. If that player is not in the building, it will target the next player in its randomly generated priority list. All other players are invisible/immune to the ghost.
  
• Demon has a 20 second cooldown between hunts instead of the usual 25.
  
• Deogen does not need line of sight to detect players, and will always chase towards the closest player. The only way to survive its hunt it to loop it.
  
• Hantu leaves behind freezing breath clouds during hunts as it roams through cold rooms.
  
• Myling is much harder to hear during hunts, with both its footsteps as voice sounds only being heard from short distances. You generally can only hear them if they are right below or above you, or on the same floor, within a 12m radius from you.
  
• Obake has a 6.66% chance to change ghost model or posture during a hunt, guaranteeing at least one of these changes every hunt.
  
• Oni is generally more visible during hunts
  
• Phantom is generally less visible during hunts
  
• Poltergeist will throw an item every 0.5 seconds 100% of the time as opposed to 50% of the time.
  
• Yokai does not detect any sound or electronics unless within 2.5m from it. Line of sight is unaffected.

Extra Objectives

Some of the extra objectives are a bit fague. This serves as an explanation and completion guide for any extra objective.

Escape a hunt

You must have a ghost detect a player, yet not kill any player, during the same hunt. Generally achieved through intentionally gaining line of sight, smudging, then hiding. If a completely different player happens to die during the hunt, this objective fails, and must be attempted again on the next hunt.

Nightmare Cheat Sheet

Cheat Sheet listing guaranteed evidences, confirm, and deny methods:

Guaranteed Evidences:

• Deogen: Spirit Box
  
• Goryo: D.O.T.S.
  
• Hantu: Freezing Temperatures
  
• Moroi: Spirit Box
  
• Obake: Fingerprints

Confirm:

• Banshee: Banshee Scream + Ignoring players during hunt.
  
• Demon: Instant hunt + Hunt <25sec after last hunt ended. + Hunt within 60 seconds after smudging the ghost outside of a hunt.
  
• Deogen: Deogen Hunt.
  
• Goryo: D.O.T.S. Visible on camera but not with naked eye.
  
• Hantu: Freezing Breath during hunts.
  
• Jinn: Significantly speeds up while in line of sight, but has normal speed otherwise.
  
• Mare: Turns off light immediately after it's turned on. Has cooldown on attempts.
  
• Myling: Abnormally silent hunts.
  
• Obake: 6-finger fingerprints, or 4 fingers on keyboards / prison doors, or 2 fingers on light switches + Model or posture change during hunt.
  
• Oni: Much more visible during hunts.
  
• Onryo: Third extuingished candle immediately leads to another candle being extuingished, a crucifix being eaten, or a hunt.
  
• Phantom: Picture during event or hunt leads to event ending, and picture says ghost, but ghost is not visible, and there is no distortion.
  
• Poltergeist: Multiple objects thrown at the same time.
  
• Raiju: Fast near random electronics, normal speed otherwise.
  
• Mimic: Significant changes in ghost behavior that would otherwise confirm or deny other ghosts, or ghost behavior impossible with current evidence + 3rd evidence.
  
• Twins: Constant hunting speed, but different speeds across multiple hunts.
  
• Yokai: Cannot detect electronics during hunt even from close distance.
  
• Yurei: Fully closes doors outside of hunts.

Deny:

• Banshee: Targeting multiple players in one hunt.
  
• Deogen: Lack of Deogen Hunt.
  
• Goryo: D.O.T.S. Visible with the naked eye + Ghost Room Change.
  
• Hantu: Breaker is turned on.
  
• Jinn: Breaker is turned off.
  
• Mare: Light is turned on.
  
• Myling: Normal hunt audio / can be heared on different floors / can be heard outside of electronics malfunction range.
  
• Oni: Mist ball ghost event.
  
• Onryo: Three candles extuinguished does not lead to a hunt + Crucifix damaged with a lit candle on top of it.
  
• Phantom: Ghost visible on ghost photo.
  
• Raiju: No response to electronics during hunts.
  
• Revenant: Normal ghost speed during hunts.
  
• Spirit: Ghost hunts between 90 and 180 seconds after smudging the ghost outside a hunt.
  
• Twins: Normal ghost speed, can be hard to detect as the slow movement speed of the main ghost hunt is very similar to normal speed.
  
• Wraith: Ghost walks in salt.

Banshee

Description

The Banshee is a special ghost that can only hunt one player at a time, instead of killing any player like usual ghosts.

Core Traits

Evidence:

• D.O.T.S.
  
• Fingerprints
  
• Ghost Orbs

Hunting Treshold:
50%*
*Tracks target player sanity instead of team average sanity.
Hunting Speed:
Average

Unique Identifiers

Guaranteed Evidence:
None.
Favorite Ghost Event:
Singing Ghost Event.
Special Hunt Behavior:
Banshee generates a priority list of the players at the start of the investigation. During a hunt, it can only see and kill the highest priority player in the house.
Disabilities:
None.
Banshee Scream:
Can produce an unique screaming sound 33% of the time when getting a whisper or footstep response through the ParaMic.

Other abilities

• If a singing ghost event targets the top priority player, and if that player gets too close, causing the event to end early, it drains 15% sanity instead of 10%.
  
• If the Banshee would start a Roam, if the top priority player is in the building, it has a 66% chance to roam to that player instead of anywhere else. Does not occur during hunts.

Strategies

WIP

Demon

Description

The most aggressive ghost in the game, being able to hunt at any sanity.

Core Traits

Evidence:

• Fingerprints
  
• Ghost Writing
  
• Freezing Temperatures

Hunting Treshold:
70%
Hunting Speed:
Average

Unique Identifiers

Guaranteed Evidence:
None.
Favorite Ghost Event:
None.
Special Hunt Behavior:
20 second cooldown between hunts instead of the normal 25 seconds. Smudging a demon prevents hunts for only 60 seconds rather than 90 seconds.
Disabilities:
None.

Other abilities

• Can start a hunt at any sanity. If this ability activates, it will walk towards a player, wait for a bit, then hunt. A crucifix can block this.
  
• Crucifixes have a 5 meter radius / 10 meter diameter instead of the default 3m radius / 6m diameter.

Strategies

WIP

Deogen

Description

Unique ghost that always sees all players. It will chase the most nearby player, but is extremely slow when near a player, allowing for easy looping.

Core Traits

Evidence:

• D.O.T.S.
  
• Ghost Writing
  
• Sprit Box

Hunting Treshold:
40%
Hunting Speed:
Fast when far away, extremely slow when closeby.

Unique Identifiers

Guaranteed Evidence:
Spirit Box.
Favorite Ghost Event:
None.
Special Hunt Behavior:
Can always detect all players. Always moves towards the closest player. Is very fast far away, but extremely slow when closeby. Can easily be looped in any large room, or around any obstacle.
Disabilities:
None.
Deogen Breathing
When getting a spirit box response, if the Deogen is within 1 meter distance, it has a 1 in 3 chance to respond with heavy breathing instead of any other answer.

Other abilities

• None

Strategies

WIP

Goryo

Description

An elusive ghost that tends to make it harder for players to gather evidence.

Core Traits

Evidence:

• EMF-5
  
• D.O.T.S.
  
• Fingerprints

Hunting Treshold:
50%
Hunting Speed:
Average

Unique Identifiers

Guaranteed Evidence:
D.O.T.S.
Favorite Ghost Event:
None.
Special Hunt Behavior:
None.
Disabilities:
Cannot change Ghost Room.

Other abilities

• D.O.T.S. interaction is not visible with the naked eye, and only occurs if there is no player in the same room as the Ghost. This is tracked through room divisions and not through distance. In rare cases, this can cause the ghost to interact with the D.O.T.S. while a player is in the same room as the emitter.

Strategies

WIP

Hantu

Description

A ghost that feeds on the cold. It becomes faster the colder it is.

Core Traits

Evidence:

• Fingerprints
  
• Ghost Orbs
  
• Freezing Temperatures

Hunting Treshold:
50%
Hunting Speed:
Movement speed varies depending on the room temperature.

Unique Identifiers

Guaranteed Evidence:
Freezing Temperatures.
Favorite Ghost Event:
None.
Special Hunt Behavior:
Movement speed varies depending on the room temperature. Emits freezing breath while walking visible as long as the breaker is off.
Disabilities:
Cannot turn the breaker on.

Other abilities

• Generally makes more rooms freezing than average freezing temperature ghosts.
  
• Turns the breaker off twice as often on average.
  
• Does not have line of sight acceleration during hunts.

Strategies

WIP

Jinn

Description

A ghost that gets stronger if the breaker is on, with sudden surges of speed and sanity draining powers.

Core Traits

Evidence:

• EMF-5
  
• Fingerprints
  
• Freezing Temperatures

Hunting Treshold:
50%
Hunting Speed:
Average, can speed up significantly with line of sight if the breaker is on.

Unique Identifiers

Guaranteed Evidence:
None.
Favorite Ghost Event:
None.
Special Hunt Behavior:
If the breaker is on, the Jinn gains a speed boost while in line of sight and some distance away from a player.
Disabilities
Cannot turn breaker off directly. Can turn it off indirectly by turning on a light and tripping it.

Other abilities

• If the breaker is on, a Jinn may activate an ability that drains 25% sanity of every player in the same room or within 3 meters, generating an EMF2/5 rating at the fuse box.

Strategies

WIP

Mare

Description

This ghost hates light, and feeds on darkness.

Core Traits

Evidence:

• Ghost Writing
  
• Ghost Orbs
  
• Spirit Box

Hunting Treshold:
60% if the room light of the room the ghost is in is off.
40% if the room light of the room the ghost is in is on.
Hunting Speed:
Average

Unique Identifiers

Guaranteed Evidence:
None.
Favorite Ghost Event:
Light breaking event.
Special Hunt Behavior:
None.
Disabilities
Cannot turn a light on.

Other abilities

• May turn a light off immediately after it is turned on. This ability has a cooldown, and cannot be tested for by spamming a light on and off. This ability also works on TV and computer lights.
  
• Is more likely to roam towards an unlit room.

Strategies

WIP

Moroi

Description

This one feeds on insanity, getting stronger as the team's sanity deteriorates under its curse.

Core Traits

Evidence:

• Ghost Writing
  
• Spirit! Box
  
• Freezing Temperatures

Hunting Treshold:
50%
Hunting Speed:
Slightly slow at 50% sanity, slightly fast at 40% sanity, fast at 25% sanity, very fast at 0% sanity.

Unique Identifiers

Guaranteed Evidence:
Spirit Box.
Favorite Ghost Event:
None.
Special Hunt Behavior:
Speed changes depending on average team sanity.
Disabilities
None.
Moroi's Curse
If a player gets a spirit box response or hear whispers through a ParaMic, they are cursed. Taking a sanity pill removes the curse. While cursed, the Moroi drains an additional instance of passive sanity drain. This sanity drain happens even while holding a lit candle.

Other abilities

None

Strategies

WIP

Myling

Description

A ghost capable of concealing the noise it makes during a hunt.

Core Traits

Evidence:

• EMF-5
  
• Fingerprints
  
• Ghost Writing

Hunting Treshold:
50%
Hunting Speed:
Average

Unique Identifiers

Guaranteed Evidence:
None.
Favorite Ghost Event:
None.
Special Hunt Behavior:
You can hear the ghost only from a short distance, at 12 meters as opposed to the usual 20 meters.
Disabilities
None.

Other abilities

• Myling makes sounds on the ParaMic more often.

Strategies

WIP

Obake

Description

A shapeshifter. Is often caught due to extra fingerprints, or by changing shapes during hunts.

Core Traits

Evidence:

• EMF-5
  
• Fingerprints
  
• Ghost Orbs

Hunting Treshold:
50%
Hunting Speed:
Average

Unique Identifiers

Guaranteed Evidence:
Fingerprints.
Favorite Ghost Event:
None.
Special Hunt Behavior:
Changes ghost model or posture at least once each hunt. Dead players cannot see this change. Example of this change:

Disabilities
None.
Obake Fingerprints
Obake has a 1 in 4 chance to hide its fingerprints, and a 1 in 6 chance to leave a 6-finger handprint on a door, or 2 fingers on a light switch, or a 5 fingerprints on a keyboard or prison door.

Other abilities

• May halve the remaining duration of any lingering fingerprints.

Strategies

WIP

Oni

Description

A powerful ghost that likes to go toe to to in force with the investigators.

Core Traits

Evidence:

• EMF-5
  
• D.O.T.S.
  
• Freezing Temperatures

Hunting Treshold:
50%
Hunting Speed:
Average

Unique Identifiers

Guaranteed Evidence:
None.
Favorite Ghost Event:
Full manifestation visual model.
Special Hunt Behavior:
Stays visible for longer during hunts.
Disabilities
No mist ball ghost event.

Other abilities

• More active in general, and even more active if players are in the ghost room.
  
• Fake hunt ghost events drain 20% sanity if it touches a player, instead of the usual 10%.

Strategies

WIP

Onryo

Description

A ghost that hates fire and extuingishes it where possible.

Core Traits

Evidence:

• Ghost Orbs
  
• Spirit Box
  
• Freezing Temperatures

Hunting Treshold:
60%
Hunting Speed:
Average

Unique Identifiers

Guaranteed Evidence:
None.
Favorite Ghost Event:
None.
Special Hunt Behavior:
None.
Disabilities
Cannot damage a crucifix if there is a lit candle within 0.5m of it.
Onryo Hunt
Every 3rd candle or campfire extuingished by the ghost guarantees a hunt attempt at any sanity within the next ~5 seconds, which can only be prevented by crucifixes or other lit flames.
Onryo Candle Crucifixes
Candles, campfires and lit lighters count as crucifixes for this ghost, with a 4 meter radius as opposed to the usual 3 meters of a crucifix. If both are in range, it will always prioritize blowing out the candle, which in itself can cause a hunt if it's the third extinguished candle.

Other abilities

• Is more likely to blow out candles and campfires. This increased rate further increases with player deaths.

Strategies

WIP

Phantom

Description

An elusive ghost that hides from cameras.

Core Traits

Evidence:

• D.O.T.S.
  
• Fingerprints
  
• Spirit Box

Hunting Treshold:
50%
Hunting Speed:
Average

Unique Identifiers

Guaranteed Evidence:
None.
Favorite Ghost Event:
Translucent ghost events.
Special Hunt Behavior:
Is invisible for longer, at 1-2 seconds per flash, instead of 0.3-1 seconds.
Disabilities
Can never be visible on a ghost picture.
Phantom Ghost Picture
When successfully making a picture of a Phantom during a ghost event or hunt, the ghost will be invisible on the picture, and picture static is removed. If it was a ghost event, it ends immediately, though the event sound may continue playing.

Other abilities

• May roam to a player, leaving an EMF-2 reading at the starting location. While walking to the player, it cannot initiate a hunt.
  
• Being within heartbeat radius of the ghost during a ghost event or hunt drains 0.5% sanity per second.
  

Strategies

WIP

Poltergeist

Description

A ghost powerful of lifting many objects at the same time.

Core Traits

Evidence:

• Fingerprints
  
• Ghost Writing
  
• Spirit Box

Hunting Treshold:
50%
Hunting Speed:
Average

Unique Identifiers

Guaranteed Evidence:
None.
Favorite Ghost Event:
None.
Special Hunt Behavior:
Throws an item every 0.5 seconds 100% of the time as opposed to 50% of the time.
Disabilities
None.
Poltergeist Throw
The Poltergeist may throw multiple items at the same time. This drains sanity for any players that witness it, equal to twice the amount of items thrown.

Other abilities

• Poltergeists may throw items up to twice as far as other ghosts. It cannot do this while throwing multiple objects at the same time.

Strategies

WIP

Raiju

Description

This dangerous ghost siphons power from electronics to fuel its strength and speed.

Core Traits

Evidence:

• EMF-5
  
• D.O.T.S.
  
• Spirit Orbs

Hunting Treshold:
65% if there are active electronics nearby, otherwise 50%.
Hunting Speed:
Fast near active electronics, otherwise average.

Unique Identifiers

Guaranteed Evidence:
None.
Favorite Ghost Event:
None.
Special Hunt Behavior:
Is faster near active equipment.
Disabilities
None.

Other abilities

None.

Strategies

Equipment that count as active electronics:

• Turned on flashlights, EMF Readers, ParaMics, Thermometers, Spirit Box. Do not have to be held in hand.
  
• Held cameras or cameras on tripods.
  
• Placed D.O.T.S. cameras, motion sensors or sound sensors.

Equipment that don't count as active electronics:

• Cameras, motion sensors, sound sensors or D.O.T.S. dropped on the floor.
  
• Glowsticks, candles or lighters.
  
• Head mounted cameras.
  
• Electronics that are hidden in a player's inventory.
  
• Electronics in the building, like fans, TVs or fuse box.
  
• Room lights.

Any one item is enough to empower the Raiju in its effective radius, having more electronics turned on does not affect it beyond the first.

Revenant

Description

A ghost that can chase players at insane speeds.

Core Traits

Evidence:

• Ghost Orbs
  
• Ghost Writing
  
• Freezing Temperatures

Hunting Treshold:
50%
Hunting Speed:
Very fast when in line of sight, very slow when not in line of sight.

Unique Identifiers

Guaranteed Evidence:
None.
Favorite Ghost Event:
None.
Special Hunt Behavior:
Movement speed is very slow by default, but speeds up to the second fastest possible ghost speed when in line of sight.
Disabilities
None.

Other abilities

None.

Strategies

WIP

Shade

Description

A ahy and kinda boring ghost.

Core Traits

Evidence:

• EMF-5
  
• Ghost Writing
  
• Freezing Temperatures

Hunting Treshold:
35%
Hunting Speed:
Average

Unique Identifiers

Guaranteed Evidence:
None.
Favorite Ghost Event:
Ghost mist.
Special Hunt Behavior:
None.
Disabilities
The ghost cannot cause EMF-3 interactions, or start a hunt, if a player is in the same room as it.

Other abilities

• Much lower average activity.
  
• Ghost events can be countered depending on sanity. At 100% sanity, it will be countered 100% of the time. At 50% sanity, it will be countered 0% of the time and it can perform ghost events as normal.
  
• When the ghost manifests during a ghost event, summoning circle completion, or music box lure, it has a 2 in 3 chance to use the shadow variant of the visual model.

Strategies

WIP

Spirit

Description

Supposedly the most common ghost, but that's false. It is considered the "tutorial" ghost in the game, as it has no strengths and only 1 weakness.

Core Traits

Evidence:

• EMF-5
  
• Ghost Writing
  
• Spirit Box

Hunting Treshold:
50%
Hunting Speed:
Average

Unique Identifiers

Guaranteed Evidence:
None.
Favorite Ghost Event:
None.
Special Hunt Behavior:
None.
Disabilities
Cannot attack for 180 seconds after being smudged outside a hunt, instead of the usual 90 seconds.

Other abilities

None.

Strategies

WIP

Thaye

Description

An extremely agressive ghost that pacifies over time.

Core Traits

Evidence:

• D.O.T.S.
  
• Ghost Writing
  
• Ghost Orbs

Hunting Treshold:
75% at the start of an investigation. Can go down to as low 15% under certain conditions.
Hunting Speed:
Very fast at the start of an investigation. Can go down to very slow under certain conditions.

Unique Identifiers

Guaranteed Evidence:
None.
Favorite Ghost Event:
None.
Special Hunt Behavior:
Extremely fast on early hunts, average or slow on late hunts.
Disabilities
Does not speed up while in line of sight of a player.

Other abilities

• At base it has a 200% interaction rate.
  
• Every 1 to 2 minutes, the ghost will check if there is a player nearby. If there is, the ghost will age. Every time the ghost ages, it loses 0.175m/s hunt speed, 6% hunting treshold and interaction rate. This caps at a 1m/s ghost speed, 15% hunting treshold and a 50% interaction rate.

Strategies

If you encounter a particularly active ghost and you suspect a thaye, use candles to prevent hunts and stay in the ghost room to force it to age.

The Mimic

Description

The Mimic can copy any ghost's abilities, making it highly unpredictable.

Core Traits

Evidence:

• Fingerprints
  
• Ghost Orbs (Fake)
  
• Spirit Box
  
• Freezing Temperatures

Hunting Treshold:
Equal to the ghost it copies.
Hunting Speed:
Equal to the ghost it copies.

Unique Identifiers

Guaranteed Evidence:
Ghost Orbs.
Favorite Ghost Event:
Equal to the ghost it copies.
Special Hunt Behavior:
Equal to the ghost it copies.
Disabilities
Equal to the ghost it copies.

Other abilities

• The ghost can change what ghost it is imitating every 30 seconds to 2 minutes. This change cannot occur in the middle of a hunt.
  
• While imitating a ghost, it will copy every single trait of that ghost, except for the evidence traits. If it imitates a Mimic, it loses any special traits until it mimics something else.
  
• Can copy unique evidence traits, but only if it itself has those evidence. For example, it can copy Obake's 6-finger fingerprints, but not Goryo D.O.T.S.. It also cannot copy guaranteed evidences even if it has them, on Nightmare or 0-2 evidence Custom.
  
• There are one exception towards what the Mimic can copy. It cannot copy a Thaye's ageing system, instead having a fixed, randomized age for the mimic duration.

Strategies

WIP

The Twins

Description

Unlike popular belief, the Twins is actually one ghost with an unusually long interaction range.

Core Traits

Evidence:

• EMF-5
  
• Spirit Box
  
• Freezing Temperatures

Hunting Treshold:
50%
Hunting Speed:
Fast if hunting from its long range Twin Interaction location, otherwise slow.

Unique Identifiers

Guaranteed Evidence:
None.
Favorite Ghost Event:
None.
Special Hunt Behavior:
Fast if hunting from its long range Twin Interaction location, otherwise slow.
Disabilities
None.
Twin Interaction
Any ghost has a 3 meter range for interactions. When a Twin performs an interaction this way, it has a 50% chance to perform a second interaction, at the same time, within a 16 meter radius sphere. This second interaction can be in a different room, or even on a different floor. In rare cases, this can be confused for a poltergeist throwing two items at the same time.
Twin Hunt
When a Twin starts its hunt, it can hunt either at its current position, or hunt at the location of the last long range Twin Interaction it performed. If it hunts at the long range location, it gets a speed boost. If it hunts normally, it gets a speed penalty. Either way, it will always check for crucifixes at its own location, and will always have a 25 second cooldown after a hunt.

Other abilities

None

Strategies

As there is no second ghost, red herring interactions can be distuingished through a lack of cold room temperatures, a lack of motion sensor detections, or a general lack of continued interactions.

It's important to find the Twin's actual location early to place crucifixes there as it checks for its own location when attempting a hunt.

Wraith

Description

A teleporting ghost

Core Traits

Evidence:

• EMF-5
  
• D.O.T.S.
  
• Spirit Box

Hunting Treshold:
50%
Hunting Speed:
Average

Unique Identifiers

Guaranteed Evidence:
None.
Favorite Ghost Event:
None.
Special Hunt Behavior:
None.
Disabilities
Cannot step into salt and therefore cannot produce any UV footprints.
Wraith "Salt"
If you put a motion sensor inside of a salt pile, you can confirm a Wraith. If it gets detected by the sensor but does not step into the salt, it's a Wraith.

Other abilities

• When not hunting, the Wraith can teleport to a player and interact with a nearby object immediately after the teleport. This leaves an EMF-2 evidence, with the usual 25% chance of being EMF-5 as it's an EMF-5 ghost.

Strategies

The wraith has no other special abilities other than the ones mentioned above. It does not have any form of wallhacks, it cannot phase through walls or doors, etc. It merely can teleport and not walk through salt. That's all.

Yokai

Description

A ghost that gets aggressive when talked near to.

Core Traits

Evidence:

• D.O.T.S.
  
• Ghost Orbs
  
• Spirit Box

Hunting Treshold:
80% if players are talking through voice chat nearby, otherwise 50%.
Hunting Speed:
Average

Unique Identifiers

Guaranteed Evidence:
None.
Favorite Ghost Event:
None.
Special Hunt Behavior:
A Yokai can only hear players or detect electronics within 2.5 metres of it. Line of sight is unaffected.
Disabilities
None.

Other abilities

• Making noise through voice chat increases the Yokai's activity.
  
• When starting a cursed hunt through the Music Box, a Yokai must be much closer to the Music Box.

Strategies

If you suspect a Yokai, you can confirm it early by purposefully talking while holding candles and maintaining a 76-80% sanity, at which only a Yokai could hunt. If you ruled out Thaye and Demon, you can go as low as 66% sanity to bait a Yokai hunt.

It's strength is entirely dependant on in-game voice chat usage. If you mute in-game and use discord or another method of communication, it's compeltely negated.

Yurei

Description

One of the most hated ghosts due to a lack of unique traits that actually occur during investigations.

Core Traits

Evidence:

• D.O.T.S.
  
• Ghost Orbs
  
• Freezing Temperatures

Hunting Treshold:
50%
Hunting Speed:
Average

Unique Identifiers

Guaranteed Evidence:
None.
Favorite Ghost Event:
None.
Special Hunt Behavior:
None.
Disabilities
None.
Yurei Door "Slam"
Sometimes the Yurei activates an ability that drains 15% of all players within a 7.5 meter radius of it. If the room it is currently in has one or more doors, it will select that door and close it. It does not get closed aggressive, but at normal speed, leaving a normal EMF-2 evidence. This ability cannot be used if the room has no doors. Closing doors like this is not unique to Yurei's, though Yurei is the only ghost that can close a building's exit door outside of hunts and ghost events, through this method. Sadly the ability does not occur very often, making it very difficult to confirm a Yurei's presence. Locker and Closet doors are not affected by this ability, but Tent doors are.

Other abilities

• When smudged outside of a hunt, alongside the usual 90 minute hunt lockout, the Yurei also becomes stuck in the room it was smudged in. It can still walk around in that room.

Strategies

Due to the lack of unique traits, the Yurei is generally hard to confirm or deny.

Map viewer

The best map viewing tool available for the game is Karotte's Map Viewing Tool[phasmo.karotte.org]. There is also Fantismal's Map Viewing Tool[phasmofinder.vercel.app]

6 Tanglewood Drive

Tanglewood is the smallest location in Phasmophobia. It is a house with 2 floors and 11 rooms. While finding the ghost room may be easy, surviving a hunt may be more difficult due to there being only 6 possible hiding spots, and it being an open plan layout:


Some things worth noting is that the Foyer is made up by both of the parallel hallways near the entrance, and the Master Bedroom is made up by both the bedroom itself, but also the adjecent bathroom and storage room. The Kitchen and Dining Room division can be seen through the change in floor.


Item locations:

• Music Box: Nursey, on a plank next to the entrance.
  
• Cursed Mirror: At the left at the end of the Foyer, in front of the Master Bedroom entrance
  
• Vodoo Doll: Garage, on the crash bin in the corner.
  
• Summoning Circle: Basement hallway.
  
• Ouija Board: Back of the Basement, on a small table.
  
• Tarrot Cards: Small table in the far corner of the living room.
  
• Monkey Paw: Dining room, in the white closet
  
• Breaker: Garage, left wall, or basement wall.
  
• Car keys: Immediately in front of the entrance on the small cabinet.

13 Willow Street

Willow Street house is the second smallest location in Phasmophobia. It is a house with 2 floors and 10 rooms, 3 of which in its large basement. On average, the rooms are a bit larger than Tanglewood's, making it harder to successfully prevent hunts with crucifixes. It contains no closets or lockers, but has various other available hiding spots.

Some things worth noting is that some of the location's hiding spots can be used regardless of whether the game considers them "blocked off" or not, although they are less reliable when "blocked off."


Item locations:

• Music Box: Immediately left of the entrance on the small cabinet.
  
• Cursed Mirror: In the corner of the garage's utility room.
  
• Vodoo Doll: In the white closet in the boy's bedroom.
  
• Summoning Circle: Basement hallway.
  
• Ouija Board: On washing machine in the garage's utlity room.
  
• Tarrot Cards: Small table next to the sofa in the living room.
  
• Monkey Paw: In the cabinet in the hallway.
  
• Breaker: Garage, left wall, or basement, far side of the hallway.
  
• Car keys: Immediately left of the entrance on the small cabinet.

42 Edgefield Road

Edgefield Road house is one of the larger houses. It has 3 floors, with 16 rooms spread among them. It has a lot of bedrooms that all have attached bathrooms, as well as a ton of closets to hide in. It's hallways are long and narrow, and if a ghost chooses one as its preferred room, expect a lot of interactions at different parts of the house.


Item locations:

• Music Box: Small table in the living room.
  
• Cursed Mirror: Immediately right of the entrance, on the wall.
  
• Vodoo Doll: Upstairs on a bed in the far bedroom.
  
• Summoning Circle: Downstairs basement in the second room.
  
• Ouija Board: In the washing room next to the kitchen.
  
• Tarrot Cards: Immediately to the right of the entrance on the cabinet.
  
• Monkey Paw: On the baby's changing table in the orange bedroom.
  
• Breaker: Garage, far left wall, or basement, inside of the second room, on the right.
  
• Car keys: Immediately to the right of the entrance on the cabinet.

10 Ridgefield Court

This is the largest house map, containing 16 large rooms across three floors, including a massive basement. It features a balance between closets, lockers and other hiding spots, including a hiding spot behind the kitchen fridge, which, while not completely safe, is always available.


Item locations:

• Music Box: Upstairs on the cabinet in the Girl's bedroom.
  
• Cursed Mirror: Hanged up against the wall across of the basement stairs
  
• Vodoo Doll: On the bench in hallway / piano room.
  
• Summoning Circle: In the basement.
  
• Ouija Board: In the shelf of the utility room.
  
• Tarrot Cards: On the cabinet immediately to the right of the entrance.
  
• Monkey Paw: On the desk in the boy's bedroom.
  
• Breaker: In the garage, or in the basement on the left or right.
  
• Car keys: On the cabinet immediately to the right of the entrance.

Grafton Farmhouse

Surprisingly still considered a "small" map according to the developers, Grafton is the smaller of the two farms. It may only contain 13 rooms across 2 floors, but each room is much larger than the average house rooms. Hiding spots generally include walls made out of boxes or cabinets, or changing screens. There is also a chair upstairs next to the stairs that you can always hide behind. It also offers multiple exit doors, allowing some sanity loss optimization if you walk around the building to use the door closest to the ghost room.


Item locations:

• Music Box: Immediately to the right of the entrance, inside the bookcase under the stairs.
  
• Cursed Mirror: On the wall slightly to the left, forward from the entrance
  
• Vodoo Doll: In the nursery upstairs, on a little chest.
  
• Summoning Circle: In the storage room upstairs.
  
• Ouija Board: In the utility room next to the master bedroom.
  
• Tarrot Cards: On the table in the dining room.
  
• Monkey Paw: Twin's bedroom, holding the axe on the desk.
  
• Breaker: In the utility room next to the master bedroom, or in the storage room upstairs.

Bleasdale Farmhouse

Grafton's bigger cousin, Bleasdale is a massive 16 room, 3 floor farm, including a gigantic attic. Hiding spots are similar to Grafton's, but they are more spread out. A lot of hiding spots can be found in the attic.


Item locations:

• Music Box: On the table in the living room.
  
• Cursed Mirror: On the far wall in the office.
  
• Vodoo Doll: On the chair at the end of the upstairs hallway.
  
• Summoning Circle: In the attic.
  
• Ouija Board: On the table in the workshop.
  
• Tarrot Cards: On the desk in the office.
  
• Monkey Paw: Master bedroom, on the chest.
  
• Breaker: Under the stairs at the main entrance, or in the workshop, or in the attic.

Camp Woodwind

This small campground tests the player's ability to investigate while being obstructed by the weather. Ghost rooms are often harder to locate due to lower ambient temperatures, and cameras become next to useless if there is fog. It features 11 rooms, 3 of which are considered outside. The campfire "room" is especially noteworthy, spanning across almost half the map. All outdoor rooms have christmas lights hanging above them that can be turned on with a button that is attached to one of the pillars holding up the light. These are essential to prevent large sanity loss. All other rooms offer a lantern that can be turned on. Hiding spots include small tents, which should generally be avoided due to finicky doors, as well as stacked boxes.


Item locations:

• Music Box: In a small table in the yellow tent.
  
• Cursed Mirror: Against the big tree in the middle of the map.
  
• Vodoo Doll: Against the small blue tent next to the red tent.
  
• Summoning Circle: Food tent floor.
  
• Ouija Board: On the table in the game tent.
  
• Tarrot Cards: On the picknick table next to the white tent.
  
• Monkey Paw: Lover's bench, on the table.
  
• Breaker: Next to the food tent.

Sunny Meadows (Restricted)

The restricted variant of Sunny Meadows is a very unique map. It takes the large Sunny Meadows map and locks down most of it, leaving an investigation area similar in size to a farmhouse. You will always have access to the central building, including the chapel, and access to one of the five wings, chosen at random:

- Main wing, upstairs back
- Male wing, upstairs left
- Female wing, upstairs right
- Hospital wing, downstairs left
- Restricted wing, downstairs right

With exception of the main wing, all wings have an identical layout. There is one long hallway, pray the ghost does not pick it as its favorite room. Connecting to the hallway are many small rooms. Towards the end of the hallway is a stairwell, which is always blocked off in restricted mode. The main wing forms a U shape around the chapel and courtyard, with an even larger hallway. All hallways have objects placed in them to limit the Ghost's line of sight, but they also hamper movement. Consider leaving flashlights on the floor to help with navigation. Hiding spots are generally lockers, bookcases or flipped over beds. During a hunt, doors between wings are locked as well. This means need to find one or more hiding spots in each wing, as the ghost can still go through the locked door. Candle usage is heavily recommended for this map.

Cursed objects can all be found inside the chapel. When on custom difficulty, having all 6 cursed objects allows for an easter egg.

Maple Lodge Campsite

Woodwind's larger brother, Maple is a campsite with many more tents, as well as a small lodge on the far end of the map. Similar to Woodwind, there are Christmas lights spun from pillars to light the outside area, and investigations are hindered by the weather. Hiding spots are also similar, but Maple offers an unique, somewhat bugged way to survive a hunt. Near the bathrooms is a picknick table, which is placed particularly close to the bathroom building. So close, in fact, that it prevents the ghost from walking between the building and the table. You, on the other hand, are still able to pass through. You can use this by making small movements to the left and right of the gap, forcing the ghost to walk around the picknick table to navigate towards you, allowing you to observe the ghost for the full duration of the hunt.


Item locations:

• Music Box: On a table in front of the cabin.
  
• Cursed Mirror: In the blue tent, left back area.
  
• Vodoo Doll: Against one of the log benches at the campfire.
  
• Summoning Circle: Downstairs in the cabin.
  
• Ouija Board: On the floor in the cleaning closet.
  
• Tarrot Cards: On a table next to the white tent.
  
• Monkey Paw: In the chair at the pier.
  
• Breaker: Near the bathrooms, near the food tent, near the storage tent 2, or near the lake, next to the cabin.
  
• Cabin key: Under the doormat of the cabin.

Brownstone Highschool

Brownstone Highschool is an unique map because certain rooms are banned from becoming ghost rooms. Among its staggering 64 rooms, the 6 hallways are banned. The front lobby can still be a ghost room. The hallways offer few hiding places, and are dangerous to be in during hunts, especially considering that the player has a limited hearing range, while the ghost as infinite vision range. The most common hiding spots are bathroom stalls, but some classrooms may have hiding spots as well.


Item locations:

• Music Box: Lobby, on the right bench.
  
• Cursed Mirror: Lobby, against the right pillar
  
• Vodoo Doll: Lobby, on the far bench.
  
• Summoning Circle: Lobby, in the far middle.
  
• Ouija Board: Lobby, behind the left pillar.
  
• Tarrot Cards: Lobby, on the left bench.
  
• Monkey Paw Lobby, on the box against the right pillar.
  
• Breaker: Under the left or right stairs, or in storage room 1.

Prison

Prison is a large two floor map with two floors, but the second floor does not span across the entire building. Instead, there are 3 seperate "second floors", which are each accessable from a different part of the map. Unique to this map is the common bundling of smaller rooms into large rooms. Most notably, the cell blocks exist out of merely 5 rooms. Left cells downstairs, left cells upstairs, right cells downstairs, right cells upstairs, and cell block hallway. Because of this, any ghost residing inside one of the cell blocks becomes significantly harder to investigate. Furthermore, this map offers the fewest hiding spots of any map, instead forcing the player to rely on maintaining their distance from the ghost to stay alive.


Item locations:

• Music Box: Entrance, on the desk immediately to the left.
  
• Cursed Mirror: Entrance, under the far right chair row.
  
• Vodoo Doll: Entrance, on the desk immediately to the left.
  
• Summoning Circle: Entrance, far side.
  
• Ouija Board: Entrance, close left.
  
• Tarrot Cards: Entrance, on the desk immediately to the left.
  
• Monkey Paw: Entrance, on the desk immediately to the left.
  
• Breaker: Visitation security, A block security room or warden's office.

Sunny Meadows (Full Size)

Sunny Meadows is a beast of a map. 69 rooms spanning across 5 wings and a central hub, it dwarfs any other map in comparison. There are 5 long hallways connecting all of the rooms, which are filled with objects to help prevent line of sight from the ghost, but also hinder movement. Consider putting flashlights on the floor to aid in navigation during hunts. Unique to this map is how internal doors lock and close during hunts. These doors are the doors connecting the left and right wings to the central part of the building. This means that during a hunt, the players inside are locked to one of three areas. These areas are the left wings, right wings, or central wing and entrance area. Unlike Sunny Meadows (Restricted), the ghost can move from a basement wing to a upstairs wing during a hunt through the stairwell at the far side of the wing. Hiding spots are mostly lockers, bookcases and flipped over beds.


Cursed Possessions can all be found at one place, inside of the chapel.

Third party tools

Here are some interactive 3rd party tools that can aid in investigating the ghost.

Journal tools:

• Ty Bayn's Journal tool[tybayn.github.io]. Supports nightmare, secondary evidences and has footstep sounds. Also has a map viewing tool.
  
• Unobtanium's Journal tool[un0btanium.github.io]. Supports secondary evidences.
  
• SirJimmothy's Journal tool[sirjimmothy.github.io]. Supports secondary evidences and has a timer for various checks.
  
• Tsybulska's Journal tool[tsybulska.github.io]. Supports primary evidences only.
  
• Codazed's Journal tool[codazed.gitlab.io]. Supports primary evidences only.
  
• Reveles' Journal tool[phasmofinder.vercel.app]. Supports primary evidences only.
  
• Zuffdaddy's Journal tool[phasmophobia-matrix.com]. Outdated, supports primary evidences only.
  
• SteamR's Journal tool[phasmo.site]. Supports nightmare difficulty, but is more difficult to use.

These tools help tracking what ghost you are investigating.



Other tools:

• Unobtanium' List of Spirit Box and Ouija Board questions[un0btanium.github.io].
  
• Reveles' List of Spirit Box and Ouija Board questions[phasmofinder.vercel.app].

Common technical issues

Crashing, Freezing, Visual/Performance issues:

• Verify steam files.
  1. In Steam, right click Phasmophobia and go to Properties
  2. Select Local Files then Select Verify integrity of game files
  3. Play Phasmophobia and see if your problem still persists
  
• Update GPU drivers.
  Nvidea:
  1. Select your Graphics Card at this website[www.nvidia.com].
  2. Set Windows Driver Type: DCH.
  3. Download the most recent "GeForce Game Ready Driver"
  4. Finally, perform a clean installation.
  AMD:
  1. Download the AMD Cleanup Utility program.
  2. Open the AMD Cleanup Utility, and press 'No' upon being prompted for Safe Mode.
  3. After the safe mode prompt, a confirmation prompt will open. Press 'OK' to continue.
  4. After the process has finished (keep in mind your screen will flicker as it is doing its thing), it will ask to reboot your device; Reboot.
  5. Follow this YouTube tutorial on how to find and install your drivers.
  6. Report back to the Helper/staff assisting you on if it worked or not.
  
• Game gets stuck loading at 90%.
  1. Lower your in-game graphics to the lowest possible settings.
  2. Cap your FPS to 60 or Lower. Try playing in-game V-Sync on and off.
  3. Are you using DirectX 10? Not sure? Right click Phasmophobia in Steam > Properties > General and delete anything in "Advanced users may choose to enter modifications to their launch option" aka delete -force-feature-level-10-1
  

For more toubleshooting assistance, please join the official Phasmophobia discord server[discord.gg].

Sanity preservation

To increase your survivability, a good option is to prevent the ghost from hunting in the first place. This is done through sanity preservation techniques. To understand these techniques, however, a basic understanding of how sanity works if needed:

A player starts with 100 sanity. Your current sanity can always be checked through the sanity monitor, unless you play at nightmare or harder difficulties. The sanity monitor is not perfectly accurate, always fluctuating ±2% for each player. However, individual player sanity only matters if the ghost is a Banshee, all other sanity dependent mechanics rely on team average sanity instead.

Sanity cannot decrease while the player is outside the investigation area.

While inside the investigation area, sanity passively goes down, which is the main cause of sanity drain. The rate at which sanity goes down depends on the difficulty, map size, setup time and certain other factors, and is measured in % drain per second:


Passive sanity drain cannot be reduced, but it can be prevented. To prevent it, the player must be near strong lights, which is very map dependent. For example, standing underneath a room's light inside of a small house will prevent sanity drain, but standing underneath the light of a farm house does not, requiring an additional flashlight or candle on the ground or other light nearby light sources to meet the brightness requirement to prevent sanity drain. This is mostly due to the lower brightness levels in house basements, farms, camps and larger maps compared to regular house rooms.

The only light source that guarantees sanity drain prevention is a candle, and it only does so when a player holds it while lit.

Of course there are some limitations and downsides to turning on lights:

• The breaker must be found and turned on to turn on lights inside the house.
  
• The breaker trips if you turn on too many lights, turning them all off.
  
• You cannot see ghost orbs, or use the spirit box, in a room where the lights are on.
  
• While a lit candle prevents sanity drain completely, you generally need to bring a lighter to keep it lit which takes up an inventory slot, and it grants worse visibility compared to a flashlight.

With all of this in mind, some basic strategies take shape depending on the map:

• On small maps, simply find the breaker, then turn on hallway lights to prevent sanity drain where possible.
  
• On medium and large maps, use a candle to find the breaker and ghost room to maintain high sanity, and simply walk back and forth often to deliver all your tools, before switching to a flashlight.

Other than passive sanity drain, there are a few ways of gaining and losing sanity, not counting ghost abilities.

Tools/Cursed Possessions that give sanity:

• Sanity pills increase sanity by 20-40% depending on difficulty. (Amateur gives 40%, each step up in difficulty decreases sanity granted by 5%, capping at 20% on insanity)
  
• The Wheel of Fortune Tarot Card increases sanity by 25% if it burns green, or decreases sanity by 25% if it burns red.
  
• The Sun Tarot Card sets the player's sanity to 100%.
  
• The Moon Tarot Card sets the player's sanity to 0%.
  
• Using the monkey paw to wish to be sane / wish for sanity sets the sanity of all players to 50%, but permanently increases passive sanity drain and may cause the ghost to switch rooms. This reduces sanity if your sanity is above 50%.

Sanity drain of cursed possessions:

• Cursed Mirror drains 20% on initial use, then drains 10% per second after 2 seconds pass. Causes a cursed hunt, breaking the mirror, if the user hits 0% sanity.
  
• Music Box drains 2.5% sanity per second if within a 2.5m radius of an active music box. Hitting 0% sanity ends the song early, but only causes a normal hunt.
  
• Ouija Board drains sanity depending on what question you ask it. Normal questions drain 5%, asking questions related to it being in the same room as the Board drain 20% and asking which room the ghost or bone are in drain 50%. Hitting 0% because of this drain breaks the Board and starts a cursed hunt.
  
• The Voodoo Doll drains 5% sanity per pin, unless it's the heart pin, which drains 10%. If this drain would reduce the user's sanity to 0%, all pins are pressed and a cursed hunt starts.
  
• The Summoning Circle drains 16% sanity per candle lit. Lighting the final candle starts a cursed hunt, but locks the ghost inside the circle for 5 seconds before starting said hunt instead of the normal grace period. If the user's sanity is 0% upon lighting the final candle, the lock does not happen and the hunt begins immediately without grace period.
  
• Changing the weather using the Monkey Paw drains 30% sanity.

Dealing with fear

Fear can be a common issue holding you back from enjoying phasmophobia. Here are some tips to help with fear!

1: Keep track of sanity.

It is extremely rare for a ghost to hunt above 65% sanity. Only three ghosts have the ability to do so, two of which only under certain conditions. When starting out, you can just make sure your team stays above 65% average sanity by using sanity pills.

2: Try van duty.

Van duty is often considered as the "coward's strategy". However, it can be greatly beneficial for a team, if the player who is on van duty helps set up tools. There are three tools the van duty can help set up at the start of a round: Cameras, watching important parts of the map, or watching the ghost room from different angles after it is found. Motion detectors, covering important hallways, or exits of the ghost room. Sound sensors, covering the building. Cameras allow you to watch for D.O.T.S., Ghost orbs, interactions, and even fingerprints, ghost writing and freezing temperatures with more advanced setups. Motion sensors allows you to know exactly when the ghost enters or leaves its room. Sound sensors are the lowest priority, but help with locating the ghost room early on. On top of that, you can check exactly when interactions take place, helping the team search for them. You can also warn for when the team hits certain average sanity thresholds so they know when a hurt may start. Lastly, you can prepare items from the equipment wall and put them at the front door, reducing the amount of time the players inside need to grab said equipment. And all this from complete safety!

3: Play hide and seek with the ghost.

This one requires some custom difficulty setup. Disable losing items on death, disable grace period, reduce the starting sanity to 0%, reduce the hunt duration to short, increase the grace period to 5, and turn on the breaker by default. Add only lighters, smudge sticks and flashlights to your inventory. This will result in a playground where you will get many short hunts, but whenever a hunt start the ghost must wait 5 seconds before being able to hunt you, giving you valuable time to find a hiding spot. It also allows you to get used on how to use smudge sticks, and to keep electronics off to stay hidden. When you feel comfortable, reduce the grace period to 4, then 3, then 2. At 2 seconds, you are playing at the same grace period as on nightmare difficulty. You can also increase the hunt duration over time.

4: Play with a friendly ghost.

This is the complete opposite of suggestion 3. Instead of acclimating yourself to hunts, here you practice at becoming faster at finding and identifying the ghost. Grab the professional difficulty template, then turn on friendly ghost. This creates a stress free environment to get used to equipment and maps. You can still look around the map for hiding spots while practicing like this, preparing you for the real deal. As a rule of thumb, try to look at your sanity while practicing, and try to use sanity pills and candles to keep sanity above 50%.

[BongoConjo]

Some of the information is mixed. For example, Deogen has Phantom information

[Petadora]

thx, its really helpful

[Catequil]

Thank you! I will be updating it for the newest update as soon as possible.

[ExpiredHomework]

Surprised this isn't more popular I bought this game about 3 days ago and this helps a lot.