Since its release, Phasmophobia‘s success has hinged on a straightforward core gameplay loop: precise deduction. Every ghost within Kinetic Games’ paranormal roster had its own unique behaviors alongside three pieces of evidence (or in the Mimic’s case, four), and over the years, players learned how to distinguish a Thaye’s early activity from a Demon’s early aggression or the difference between how a Raiju messed with electrical equipment. Knowing the subtle nuances of each entity type enabled players to take on higher levels, like Insanity, Nightmare, and the Challenge modes, rewarding veteran investigators for the time spent on the game. However, the latest update has completely thrown all that out the window.

Of course, more ghosts means the nuances are smaller. While we can easily calculate the number of combos available based on the number of evidence types and their needing to be three which are unique in their totality versus the rest, the behaviors are more nuanced. They rely on shifting not just the abilities but the types of events each entity type favors, the way they interact with objects in their environment and with the investigators, and in cases like the Yurei previously, whether a door partially closes or has to always close.

Alongside evidence, the overlapping speed profiles might be given a pass as there’s a specific range that allows for potential escape but puts pressure on the player, but muddling the activity levels and triggers leads to previously more passive ghosts acting like aggressive entities, or even having entities who previously favored more slowburn haunting to go off far earlier than before. With the entity types losing what makes them unique, veterans are left in the same quagmire as novices, and with tactical benefit to analyzing their behaviors, guesswork wins over strategy, reducing player replay interest for the original fan base.

Unfortunately, anyone who has played recently will notice that the overlap is more than should be reasonably expected. Even key behaviors like the Poltergeist’s explosion are harder to trigger, and there are more cursed possession related events which can cause false positives.

Behavioral Evidence

To jump into some specifics, Shades were traditionally inactive near multiple players, shy in the early period of an investigation, and more likely to wander from their favorite room if players tried to camp out. Now, they trigger early with EMF 5s often happening back to back within the first minute of a game, or on higher difficulties, you’ll see aggressive interactions while players still have high sanity with the lights on.

Poltergeists were know to be the throwers. Throughout an investigation, they would clearly favor object movement interactions, especially chucking items around or at players if that was an option. Three small (3-4 object) piles in their favorite room could predictably trigger their unique ability, causing an explosion that other ghosts couldn’t replicate. Now, their object throwing interactions are on par with other ghosts. It took between 8-12 piles of 4-6 objects to get an explosion, which was far more time consuming.

Temperature has been far slower to drop in favorite rooms post-update. While it is still firmly the most reliable way to detect the favorite room for non-ghost orb entities, it is far more erratic. This is true even on the Hantu, who previously raced to drop the temperature. Instead, post-expansion often sees a slower build, yet the Hantu’s cold environment speed boost is popping up on hunts in these warm rooms.

Conclusion

While adding fresh mechanics and new ghosts is necessary, Kinetic Games needs to take the time and make the effort to ensure that the new entities have behavior that doesn’t encroach on already existing entities beyond reason and that they do not fundamentally disrupt the tactical-advantage players receive through the effort of repetition and behavioral analysis. That deductive game loop is what keeps the core community engage. Horror thrives on uncertainty, but investigative games rely on rules.

Hopefully, we’ll see a future patch that will, at minimum, return the older entities to their previous behaviors, leaving the newer entities space to thrive. If there’s no change and only a trophy case of skulls in our future, the Phasmo Plateau likely will turn into a pit as veteran players who remained while others jumped ship find themselves motivated to look at the plethora of alternatives.

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Featured Image: Kinetic Games

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