Phasmophobia

Pros

• A unique approach to co-cop horror
• Clever voice recognition artificial intelligence
• Gameplay focused on deduction and reasoning

Cons

• Matchmaking lobby is hard to navigate
• Lacking variety in maps and spirits

Video games have been trying to capture the terror of a ghost haunting since practically the birth of the medium, but few have managed to do so as effectively as co-op horror game Phasmophobia. In Phasmophobia, the threat of ghosts isn't assumed, but it is inevitable. Instead, players begin the game as paranormal investigators sent to a house in search of spectral inhabitants. If you've seen any ghost hunting show, you're probably familiar with the tools at the players' disposal. Modern technology like EMF readers and advanced digital cameras are accompanied by more supernatural tools like crucifixes.

Since each player can only hold three items - and since each of the tools can be a critical asset in the right situation - teamwork is imperative to success. Some tools - like the flashlight - are going to be mandatory for practically everyone, while other tools need to be used in tandem with one another to get the best effect. Other horror games may place an emphasis on jump scares, but Phasmophobia is dedicated to forcing the characters to prepare for the unknown and then throwing a curveball at them that forces them to emphasize.

But the real brilliance of Phasmophobia is how it uses players' cooperation against them. Because while the ghosts are actively hunting, they can use your voice over the radio to hunt you. Periods of frequent communication will frequently be punctuated by tense, radio silent moments in which players try best to discern the problem and coordinate with the means to do so verbally. Even cooler, the player's voice can be used to communicate with these spirits as well. Asking the ghost questions will sometimes elicit responses using devices throughout the house like Ouija boards. Once you learn more about the ghosts, you can even verbalize information about these spirits to draw them out from hiding. Underlying these mechanics is an impressively sophisticated artificial intelligence system that can identify keywords spoken by the players and use them to deduce the players' plans and determine its own moves accordingly.

A sense of investigation is the beating heart of Phasmophobia, and it brings with it a well balanced system of risk vs. reward. Your goal isn't to exorcise spirits but merely to determine what type of spirit they are. And while the game starts by giving you relatively simple objectives with relatively little risk, that core loop has some deceptive layers. From a pure gameplay perspective, the act of identifying a spirit becomes more difficult in later levels. Larger maps make it more difficult to find the source of a haunting, but discovering the location is just the first and easiest step. Players need to perform a number of different tests to determine what type of spirit is haunting the property, and that takes time, coordination, and the right equipment.

On a more insidious level, that slowly scaling difficulty is all about luring the player into a false state of self confidence. Early levels develop the sense that your coordinated teamwork can accomplish anything. While challenges arise, these levels slowly teach you the tools and the flow of gameplay. Driving this tension is an artificial intelligence that's unpredictable but not random. It finds ingenious ways to lure players apart from one another and force them into increasingly high risk scenarios with increasingly higher threat of player mistakes. Fortunately, dead players can continue to spectate, watching as the angry spirits take down the rest of their team one by one. Your goal is ultimately to learn the what and why and then get out, but the path to get there is often far more complicated. And the tools available to the spirits are vast, varied, and designed to effectively make players second guess their decisions. The open question of exactly how the A.I. works leaves players openly guessing what their next moves will be and making critical errors from over- or underestimating a situation.

Part of this comes down to the exceptional scenario design of Phasmophobia. Rather than rely on sponge bullets, jump scares, and gore, Phasmophobia opts instead for slowly building terror. Each property begins as a known unknown, but the behavior and attitude of the ghosts can quickly throw everything into disarray. Unexpected challenges will force the players to shift back and forth between rooms and out to the van to get their equipment and make sure everything is set up. Time is the enemy here. After a period of exploration, the ghosts begin actively hunting you, and that forces players to be quick with their actions. It also forces them to evaluate every part of the environment around them. Environmental sensations will vary from distant groans and creaking boards to the sound of breath in your ear and faintly seen ghostly entities. The most visceral scares are carefully apportioned, and seeing them face to face likely means that your character is already dead.

As it stands, Phasmophobia is in early access. But its selection of content is already pretty varied. The five maps vary from small homes to sprawling and abandoned mental health facilities, and each of the different ghost types has their own distinct eccentricities that make them a joy to uncover and identify. The progression system in place is not yet fully developed, but there's a rewarding sense of discovery in learning more about the spirits you'll be hunting. Each has its own distinct behaviors that veteran players can use to adjust their tactics, but misidentifying a spirit can be a costly - and perhaps lethal - mistake. Presumably, more maps and more spirit types will be released as the game continues through the development process.

The survival horror genre is bursting with games, and the market's only growing as a game's success is more and more driven by streamers and the social experience of gaming. But even in a market so saturated, Phasmophobia manages to stand out. By stripping offensive weapons out of the equation, it creates a sensation far more vulnerable than a big budget game like Resident Evil. And the way it both encourages and subverts cooperative tactics plays well to the inherent themes of a game about hunting for ghosts.

Pros

• A unique approach to co-cop horror
• Clever voice recognition artificial intelligence
• Gameplay focused on deduction and reasoning

Cons

• Matchmaking lobby is hard to navigate
• Lacking variety in maps and spirits