Phasmophobia Early Access console review
In a personal quest to be simultaneously as scared and entertained as possible, I’ve played a ridiculous amount of horror games over the years. This is in part due to having a husband who likes scary games even more than I do, and for the last year we’ve been a bit obsessed with our new favourite. Phasmophobia is unlike any other horror game out there, and now it’s finally arrived on consoles (in early access anyway) just in time for Halloween!
The aim of each game of Phasmophobia is pretty simple, you need to figure out the type of ghost haunting a location by using all sorts of real life ghost hunting gadgets. Each type of ghost leaves a different selection of evidence, so only by performing a wide variety of tests will you be able to mark down in your journal the correct one and get your cash reward. This would be fine if the ghosts were happy with you exploring their place of death, but alas that isn’t the case.
As you’re exploring a property to try and find evidence of a ghost, you’ll slowly start to lose your sanity. Things like standing in the darkness or witnessing a ghost event will cause it to drop significantly, and the less sanity you have the more likely a ghost is to attack. When the lights start flickering and you start to hear footsteps, you’ll know there’s a decent chance that the ghost has locked you in the house and is actively hunting you – only by finding a place to hide and waiting it out will you survive long enough to escape. This is just as intense as it sounds, and will likely lead to some screams from even the most experienced horror gamer.
There’s no real way to fight back against the ghost either. There’s no magic item that will kill the ghost or keep you safe in every situation, the only way to ensure your survival is to gather evidence as quickly as possible and get the hell out of there.
Once you’ve found the room the ghost likes the most (which usually involves looking for items that have been thrown about) you’ll want to rush out to your trusty van a few times to grab your gear. Some evidence is fairly easy to get, like by placing a book in a room and waiting for the ghost to scribble or write a spooky message in it. Other evidence is harder to obtain, like searching for UV prints on doors or checking for ghost orbs with your video camera. There’s nothing worse than waiting for the ghost to do something that reveals its identity, while knowing your sanity is slowly draining as you do.
The loop of each five to ten minute ghost hunting session is seriously compelling, and is made even better by every time being completely different. Obviously different maps and ghost types ensure this, but there are so many different (often spooky) things that can happen unexpectedly. Maybe a ghost will be particularly spicy early on and just show itself immediately as you shriek in horror, breath creepily into your spirit box, or write something sinister that gives you instant Goosebumps. After over 50 hours the game still manages to surprise and delight, and with a future horror update coming down the line it’s only going to get better.
I’ve played hundreds and hundreds of rounds of Phasmophobia alone, but most people will know it as a multiplayer experience. With the option to take four people into haunted houses, farms and insane asylums, you and your buddies can share in each other’s misfortune and get scared together for the ultimate ghost hunting experience.
Now Phasmophobia veterans on PC will be familiar with everything I’ve talked about until now, and are probably wondering how the game translates to console. If you’ve played with a controller on PC that’s pretty much the experience you’ll get here, and it’s still a bit fiddly and counter intuitive. I was hoping maybe a bit of refining would happen before the console release, but after a couple of hours you’ll likely get fairly comfortable with the controls anyway.
Another problem with the console release of Phasmophobia is the lack of voice detection it currently has. You can still chat with friends, but on PC you could actively talk to the ghost in order to ask it questions with your Spirit Box or a Ouija board. Instead there’s an option to press buttons to ask the ghosts set questions, but with no voice acting it’s a bit shabbily implemented and means you’re unable to ask the ghost for specific interactions.
Outside of these immediate issues, the console version of the game also has some typical early access jank to contend with. It’s just small things like rain not displaying even though you can hear it and not being able to pick things up in the hub area, but they’re annoyances that I haven’t experienced in the PC version that are immediately noticeable.
The only other issue I have with Phasmophobia currently is how slowly the game starts as a new character, mainly because of how long it takes to unlock all your equipment. The basic equipment you start with is so painful to use (especially when you’re used to the upgraded stuff) and you’re stuck with it for ages. The developers have said this is something they’re looking to address in patches coming soon though, so at least by the time the game finally hits version 1.0 it shouldn’t be a problem.
Despite having a few small issues on console, Phasmophobia is still one of the most interesting, unique, and scary horror games on the market. It’s a game I’ll be playing for hundreds more hours, and hopefully thanks to the console port I’ll be doing so with a few unfortunate friends too. If you haven’t tried Phasmophobia yet then this is a great time to start, but be warned you may need to keep a change of underwear handy.
Phasmophobia is in early access now for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S|X.
