Phasmophobia’s Latest Update Brings Gameplay and Ghost AI Changes

A new update by Kinetic Games has brought new content, new fixes, and a whole new level of fright to Phasmophobia.

Gamers may remember Phasmophobia as the hit indie horror game that took the community by storm in the Fall and Winter of 2020. Now, developer Kinetic Games has unveiled an update patch, containing everything fans have wanted and more.

Biggest Phasmophobia Update Changes

It’s been a while since fans heard from Kinetic—clearly showcased by the magnitude of this patch. According to a blog post published via Steam on Mar. 6, the latest build of Phasmophobia has a wide array of experience-focused shifts that affect nearly every aspect of gameplay.

Major Gameplay Differences

The changes in gameplay are the largest aspect players should be aware of. A few key takeaways refer to Professional difficulty, with the power now always starting as off and group-play no longer being a key factor in hunting.

Dirty water has been removed as a piece of evidence, but will remain as a bonus photo subject. Temperature has also been removed in the same capacity and has additional changes listed below. Additionally, dead players will no longer count toward total sanity, but will cause all living teammates to lose 15 points at the time of death.

Other changes include: Glow sticks will keep consistent brightness, ghost orbs move more organically, ghost attacks now count as events, and both Activity Monitors and EMF Reader will operate more randomly—similar to the Flashlight.

Ghost AI Improvements

The central “antagonist” of Phasmophobia have grown much smarter since players last saw them. They now have a much wider range of interactions they can perform while in and out of hunting mode, including opening closets, lockers, and doors. Clever spirits.

They’ve become much better hunters, as well, tracking players around corners and remembering their last seen location once line of sight is broken. It will resort to these measures instead of seeking random areas as it did prior. Ghosts will use a player’s voice to find them—listening for noise and heading directly there.

Ghost Investigations Changes

While no longer an accepted measure of ghost interaction, temperature has undergone a complete revamp to make it much more relevant while tracking. All rooms will start with a different temperature that slowly increases or decreases according to whether the power is on or off, respectively. The only sharp change in temperature will come when ghosts are directly inhabiting the space.

The Parabolic Microphone has had its range increased to make pinpointing which direction the ghost is in much more difficult. Additionally, Kinetic has removed several ambient sounds and improved the way the microphone reads player voices.

Quality of Life Advancements

Kinetic added a host of new features to the game. From now on, all players will be able to see the average sanity of the team, which allows them to keep track of when the ghost will start a hunt. Players can also choose the level of difficulty they want for their contracts instead of letting the game decide. Additionally, Kinetic has improved its use of sound by giving players control over what ports Phasmophobia will read and whether the sound of the game will be mono or stereo.

Aside from this, once in-game, players should notice a feature that allows them to select the maximum of an item rather than furiously clicking it. Invitation codes now come with a prefix displaying the server they’re formed in and can be entered using a “qwerty” formatted keyboard’s number pad—located on the right.

Changing characters will no longer cause the entire team to become “unready” and, in an effort to prevent trolling, the van door will close with a delay once opened.

The full list of fixes, switches, and other improvements made to Phasmophobia can be found on its news update post within Steam.