Any information and images are Work In Progress (WIP) and may change drastically before releasing
With Progression 2.0 on the horizon, we thought it was a good time to share how this update will be released, as it's split into several parts.
We're releasing Progression 2.0 in this way so that players can experience the new Equipment and leveling system sooner instead of waiting around for an extra six months.
We know that there's still a reasonable amount of time between now and the update, we're working hard on releasing this as soon as possible, but we also have some additional big news to share in the coming months...
As you can see, the first part of the update will include all of the new Equipment Tiers (which increases our equipment total from twenty to a whopping sixty!), the prestige and new leveling system, and some evidence overhauls. This will create a huge shake-up in how the game feels, as well as reward players for leveling, instead of just a number increasing infinitely.
Once Part One is released, we'll be moving swiftly on to reworking our Photo Rewards system, adding new Tasks, Optional Objectives, and adding new ways to earn money in each contract; Video and Sound evidence*.
Lastly, the third part of Progression 2.0 will add the long-awaited new character models (with customization), replacing player animations, as well as a complete overhaul of the CCTV system in the Truck, allowing you to navigate through placed cameras and location cameras much easier!
*more information on that to come in a later Development Preview
While evaluating our Evidence Types to see what we could improve, we found that 'Freezing Temperatures' was another Evidence that needed a glow-up.
'Freezing Temperatures' had several issues of its own;
Temperatures weren't synced across games, resulting in different players seeing Cold Breath at different times.
The Thermometer had become a redundant piece of Equipment, outside of some very niche situations
Finding Freezing Temperatures was completely passive, there was no gameplay involved outside of noticing a particle effect
Just like our green glowing friend, 'Freezing Temperatures' has also been completely overhauled.
Firstly, Cold Breath didn't make much sense contextually, to remedy this; Cold Breath particles will now appear at around 5-7 degrees Celsius and below. This makes Cold Breath make much more sense, as well as increasing immersion throughout contracts.
For example, if it's snowing and the fuse box starts off, you'll find Cold Breath instantly everywhere, even in the Truck! Alternatively, if the fuse box is on, so that the house is nice and toasty, you'll find Cold Breath appearing only in rooms where the ghost has been long enough to drop their temperature.
So how do we find 'Freezing Temperatures' Evidence? That's where the Thermometer comes in.
Firstly, the Thermometer is now Starter Equipment, meaning you'll get a free one in every contract.
Secondly, you'll need to take your Thermometer into rooms where you've found Cold Breath, and check if the temperature is zero (Celsius) or below!
Thirdly, room temperatures are now synced across players, no longer will one player see Cold Breath before another, and you'll get much more consistent readings on your Thermometers when checking in a group.
Lastly, Equipment Tiers give you different ways of checking 'Freezing Temperatures' and help you to find the ghost room:
Tier I is an old house-Thermometer, ripped straight off of your Investigator's living room wall. This Thermometer has a slow sample rate, meaning you'll have to wait longer to get an accurate reading. You may want to bring one in and check back on it later in the contract.
Tier II looks the same as the one currently in the game, however, the way you use it differs. Instead of turning it on and getting a reading every two seconds, you now have to hold the Use button to scan for temperatures. This makes running around and checking each room's temp much faster than Tier I, alongside this, scanning manually feels much more responsive, instead of updating constantly and not knowing if it's accurate or not.
Tier III is a straight upgrade to Tier II, completing temperature scans at double the speed of its predecessor. Additionally, this more modern Thermometer is more accurate with each reading, allowing players to quickly and efficiently scan rooms to find the ghost or to get 'Freezing Temperatures' ticked off in the Journal.
That's it for Development Preview #9. We'll catch you with some more teasers soon!
If you experience any issues or want to give feedback, please join the official Phasmophobia Discord: https://discord.gg/phasmophobia
Any information and images are Work In Progress (WIP) and may change drastically before releasing
So as everybody knows, with Progression 2.0 we will be resetting everyone's level back to zero. However, we will be pushing you all to Prestige 1 so that you don't have to unlock difficulties or maps that you are already playing (as well as giving you the first cool badge instantly!).
Alongside this reset, we'll be permanently immortalizing your pre-wipe level with a badge that is displayed on your character's arm.
Upon logging in for the first time after the Progression update, you will be greeted with a window to select how you want your badge to look. The number of options you have available will be determined by how far you progressed before that update!
Once it's locked in, that's it. So think carefully as there will be no way to adjust this afterward!
Here's a preview of some WIP badges, and what level you'll need to be to unlock each component.
We've had tonnes of questions on how Equipment will change going forwards, so it's time to pull back the curtain and share some info!
A portion of the equipment roster is getting a rework, some bigger than others, to make sure that they feel important and useful in different situations.
The D.O.T.S. Projector has had its fair share of highs and lows over its life, and we thought it was time to give it a re-evaluation of what problems it has and how it can be improved.
The main issue we found is that it was very unintuitive, unpolished visually, and time-consuming. We tried to fix some of these issues by increasing the chance for it to trigger before inevitably adding a fail-safe timer. This led to more issues like two Projectors triggering at the same time, visuals appearing during hunts or events, and feeling really disjointed from the actual ghost.
With Progression 2.0, the D.O.T.S. Projector has been completely rebuilt.
The D.O.T.S. visuals are now the actual ghost, meaning you will need to shine your Infrared lights near the ghost's actual position. This creates much more engaging gameplay for players, you can use D.O.T.S. to see where your ghost is, or if you're struggling to get the evidence, use Salt, Motion Sensors or other equipment to find a better spot for your Projector.
Ghosts with D.O.T.S. evidence can now enter a short “D.O.T.S. state” when wandering; where they are temporarily visible with infrared light, during this time they will wander towards the nearest player (or to a random spot in the room if it's empty) before disappearing.
Alongside this, Equipment Upgrades make finding your D.O.T.S. ghosts easier as you progress:
Tier I is like the real-life equivalent of a D.O.T.S. projector; a Laser Grid Pen. Similar to a flashlight, you can walk around the location and scan quickly for evidence, the only downside being its short range and low light intensity.
Tier II is how you know D.O.T.S. today, a placeable projector emitting an average-sized sphere of light, except now you can encourage the ghost to walk into it by standing nearby!
Tier III cranks up the light to the maximum, again placeable, this Projector scans the room at a much longer range with a wide beam of light, making finding ghosts in those bigger rooms much easier.
Different players can bring different Tiers of equipment, so feel free to try combinations out and see what your team works with best!
That's it for Development Preview #8. We'll catch you with some more teasers soon!
If you experience any issues or want to give feedback, please join the official Phasmophobia Discord: https://discord.gg/phasmophobia Thanks,
You can now complete the Easter event, if you do not have any other badges. If you had this bug, you will receive the badge and trophy by completing the Easter event on one map again
This weeks weekly challenge will now give the reward and have the correct loadout. This challenge will reset at the correct time and will not be extended
If you experience any issues or want to give feedback, please join the official Phasmophobia Discord : https://discord.gg/phasmophobia Thanks,
Welcome back ghost hunters, we've got some news for you.
We're currently hard at work getting the Progression 2.0 update together for everyone, but we wanted to give you something fun to do over the Easter period!
In the coming weeks, we will have some Dev Previews to share with you about how the new equipment will work, as well as a few examples!
Happy Easter everyone!
This year's event will run for 1 week, until 00:00 on April 12th (BST)!
Enter any location featuring an Easter sticker on any difficulty in single or multi-player.
Find and collect all of the hidden Easter eggs.
Retreat to the truck and leave! No need to find the ghost type!
Repeat this until all stickers on the contract board are ticked off!
Enjoy the Easter '23 ID Badge and Trophy in your collection!
Event information can be found in the game by pressing the egg sticker button on the main menu!
Happy Huntin'
If you eggsperience any issues or want to give feedback, please join the official Phasmophobia Discord: https://discord.gg/phasmophobia Thanks,
Added unique descriptions for crucifix interaction photos
The ghost will now always fully show when it starts moving during the start of a hunt
Monkey paw tags now update live in the journal when grabbed
The Monkey Paw tags can now be grabbed by multiple players in the same game
The ghost in the dead room will now match the ghost model if it was male
The host can now be revived with the monkey paw revive wish
The see ghost negative effect will now end after the ghost event if you have a friendly ghost
Improved main menu performance
The revive stat will now only count when you are revived, instead of when anyone is revived
Voice recognition will now work correctly for non-hosts
Improved accuracy of the ghost crucifix hunt detection
The loading screen tips are now translated correctly, if the language was changed in the same instance of the menu
Removed black objects and weird lighting from the truck in High School
Improved some translations in the shop
Potential fix for “Loadout can't be added until flipping back and forth between loadout 1 and 2
No more null references for “UpdateAddButtons” in all logs
Fixed a rare bug where you couldn’t change difficulty
Potential fix for keyboard EMF photo not working in Ridgeview
The next time you open the game, your last difficulty will reset once, in order to fix many issues some users were having if they continued to play with the settings they had pre-0.8.1.0.
Willow windows now have the new UV shader
Sound sensors, motion sensors and DOTS will no longer be detectable by the ghost when held after being placed
If you experience any issues or want to give feedback, please join the official Phasmophobia Discord : https://discord.gg/phasmophobia Thanks,
Welcome back ghost hunters, we've got some news for you.
The next major update will be Progression Part 1 (v0.9.0), and will make way for the new leveling system; player levels, money, and equipment will be wiped and set to 0, however, to allow users to continue playing as they have been, everyone who has played the game pre-wipe will be fast-tracked to Prestige 1, level 0.
This will reset your progress but keep all difficulties and locations available for play when the reset hits. A future development preview will reveal what your pre-wipes level badge will look like, keep your eyes peeled for that soon!
Custom difficulty’s reward values have been overhauled. This should help balance the game closer to the default difficulties and make progression fairer for those who don’t want to min-max their custom games.
The maximum reward value possible is now 15x
Several options have had their rewards reduced
The Apocalypse Challenges’ requirements have been adjusted:
Bronze: 6x+
Silver: 10x+
Gold: 15x
Rules have been added to reduce rewards when two options are set to specific values, thus canceling each other out but still giving you a reward. Here are some examples:
0 starting sanity with sanity pills 25% or higher
Faster ghosts but player unlimited sprint
Broken Fuse Box but Flashlights: On
Triggering one of these combinations will change the custom difficulties option panel to a yellow warning icon. You can hover your cursor over this icon to find out more information on how it is affecting or being affected by other settings.
Several custom options have been adjusted:
“Evidence Given” will now soft cap the reward multiplier. Rewards added above these multipliers will only add 50% of their values to the total reward;
3 Evidence: 4x
2 Evidence: 5x
“Grace Period” 6s has been removed
“Sprint Duration” and “Sprint Recharge” have been removed and will default to:
Duration: 3s
Recharge: 5s
“Sprint” options have been changed to:
Off
On
Infinite
Insanity
For the best investigators, a new default difficulty has been added: Insanity.
More information can be found in-game on the difficulty selection screen.
Challenge mode
A new weekly rotational difficulty has been added. Each week a different challenge will be available offering unique modes ranging from Intermediate to Insanity and beyond.
26 challenges have been added
A challenge-specific loadout will be provided automatically, for free
Completing the challenge 3 times on the specified map will grant a large money and XP bonus
Each challenge will be available twice a year
You will lose nothing if you fail or die
Sunny Meadows’ staff weren’t just experimenting on people, they were seriously trying to unearth something unnatural:
Monkey Paw
A severed paw that grants a wish for those who ask it. Be warned, the wish may not be worth the consequences:
Wishes can be found scattered inside Sunny Meadows Mental Institution and will be added to your Journal when found. These are not required to use the paw and are just a permanent note to help you remember.
The number of wishes you have will correspond to the difficulty or reward multiplier for that contract:
0x – 1.9x Rewards: 5 wishes
2x – 2.9x Rewards: 4 wishes
3x Rewards or higher: 3 wishes
“I wish for [weather]”
+ Choose any weather type, e.g; sunrise, snow, rain
- Reduces Sanity by 25%
“I wish for sanity”
+ Averages everyone’s sanity to 50%
- Sets the ghosts favourite room to a random one, increases sanity drain rate by 50% of the current value
“I wish for activity”
+ Doubles all ghost activity for 2mins (throws, doors, roaming, abilities)
- Breaks the fuse box and locks the front door for 2mins
“I wish the ghost was trapped”
+ Teleports the ghost to its room and locks all of its doors for 1 min
+ Ghost cannot hunt, roam, or do abilities while locked in its room
- Locks all doors of the wishing player’s room for 1 min
- The ghost will hunt after 1 minute and unlock all doors
- 25% chance for doors to unlock *after* the grace period...
“I wish to see the ghost”
+ Triggers a ghost event in front of you
- Instantly locks the exit doors
- Initiates a hunt straight afterward
- Reduces player vision for that hunt with a black fog
“I wish for life”
+ Revive a dead player
- 50% chance to kill the player who wished
“I wish I was safe”
+ Opens up the nearest hiding spot
- Smashes the light in the room
- The ghost can now hear and sense the player who wished's equipment at any range
“I wish to leave”
+ Unlocks all exit doors at any time, including during hunts
- Stops you moving for 5s, then slowly returns your movement speed over 5s and reduces vision for the duration
“I wish for knowledge”
+ Removes 1 incorrect evidence and corresponding ghost types from your journal
- Starts a hunt near the player
- For the rest of the game the player who wished will muffled audio and reduced vision
“I wish for anything”
A random wish!
The shop computer has had some UI improvements
Shop and Storage has been recreated, acting like an online shopping basket
Added an “all equipment” loadout
You can now tick “auto-add” to your loadout, to add it as soon as you join a lobby
Strange symbols have been spotted in the warehouse, what could they mean? Get searching for an answer!
Crucifix uses will now have new textures, effects and sounds when used
Updated all UV shaders! UV effects will now be much more accurate and work when shining another light over the UV light. Additionally, UV effects will now fade out over time, instead of disappearing instantly
“The Tower” Tarot Card will now additionally double all ghost activity for 20s
Weather particles' lighting have been improved and now works with the sky light, helping them look more realistic (no more ashy black snow!)
All windows will now have new raindrop effects on them if it's raining, and additional sounds in all maps similar to Tanglewood’s
Several foliage objects will now be affected by windy weather outside
You will now receive an in-game message when a new game update is available to download
A Broken Fuse Box’s sparks now bounce on nearby objects instead of clipping through them
Reduced the range and resolution of several environmental lights slightly. This should decrease the chance of your shadows becoming overly pixelated when having lots of lights turned on in a location, and reduce the chance of an object hitting the “maximum lights” limit (e.g. resulting in black floors or DOTS casting no light)
The time between hunts will now be the same if the ghost uses a crucifix or if it hunts (20s for Demon, 25s for other ghost types)
The ghost's room will no longer be visible on the Haunted Mirror when you use it at 0% sanity
Ghost orbs can no longer go through walls into a different room
Fog quality settings have been changed for better visual clarity across all settings
Low – Downsampling at 2, no shadows
Medium – No downsampling, no shadows
High – No downsampling, receive shadows
Blur has been removed
Renamed Daily and Weekly Challenges to Daily and Weekly Tasks, to avoid confusion with the new Challenge Mode difficulty
Several icons have been improved
Improved and fixed the visuals of light sources on the PC monitors in Prison
Improved the visuals of the collectible cabinets in the warehouse lobby
Lighting a Summoning Circle candle with no sanity will now extinguish it instantly. Note: Lighting the 5th candle with no sanity will cause an instant hunt
Saying "goodbye" on the Ouija Board no longer counts toward challenges
Renamed the High School bathrooms to make it clearer where they are
Failing to join a room with a password now gives a more descriptive error
The night vision camera effect will now adjust brightness when entering and exiting foggy areas
Ghosts can no longer interact with windows on the floor below them, in both Farmhouse locations
Voice recognition will now work for all players if other players loaded in slowly
Removed several safe spots in Prison, Maple Lodge Campsite, and School
Several shaders and materials will now render correctly
The Voodoo Doll can no longer stop hunts
Using the Voodoo Doll, Tarot Cards, Music Box and the Summoning Circle will now count towards the “use Cursed Possessions” task
Items will no longer teleport in the SM Courtyard when thrown in specific spots
Patched up some holes in the Sunny Meadows Courtyard floor
Removed an invisible wall upstairs in Edgefield
Improved Anisotropic textures for radiators, rugs, outside ground, SM flooring
Ghosts can now kill you on the blue beds in house maps
Ghosts can now detect active electronic equipment if they were grabbed when active
Voice recognition will no longer work if you have the ‘text’ voice recognition option enabled
The Apocalypse stickers will now show in Singleplayer instead of Multiplayer
A book in the Sunny Meadows Courtyard is no longer only a shadow
Removed several shadow rendering issues in Sunny Meadows and Tanglewood
Thaye will now have the correct interaction rate before aging
Window knocks now count as an interaction for stats
Tasks featuring “Asylum” will now display “Sunny Meadows”
You can no longer sprint or move while in the death room
Setting a preset for a custom difficulty and changing a cursed possession, will no longer apply that change to the actual preset difficulty, instead of just the Custom game you are editing
Standing in DOTS light will no longer stop sanity drain
You can now see your hands on your monitor when in VR and smooth camera is enabled
Ghost orbs can no longer be seen with a photo camera
The ball in the upstairs Ridgeview closet will no longer glitch when the hiding spot is blocked
Ghost orbs in the outside "rooms" in Camp Woodwind will no longer be very high above the ground
Video cameras will now receive the ghost glitch effects
The “Sky Light” will now turn on and off accurately with your settings
Lighter flame is now being considered for the Onryo hunt ability when blown out
An Onryo will now have a higher chance to blow out a flame, the more players that are dead, instead of a lower chance
Hunts will now end if all players are outside
The haunted mirror will now drain a minimum of 20 sanity per use instead of 27
If you experience any issues or want to give feedback, please join the official Phasmophobia Discord : https://discord.gg/phasmophobia Thanks,
After the successful launch of the v8.0 Tempest update, it's time to give you a peek into what's next for the game!
Any information and images are Work In Progress (WIP) and may change drastically before releasing
Firstly we'd like to announce that Progression part 1; v9.0, will be the next major update, coming shortly after v8.1. The plan is to have this out as soon as possible and will include the new leveling system for players, as well as the long-awaited equipment upgrades for your investigations!
We've seen a lot of players' concerns about why we're doing a wipe, and what will happen to their current progression, so here are a few quick insights:
The wipe is needed to make way for the new leveling system, including prestiges, and will fundamentally change how you progress through the game. You'll unlock equipment and upgrades in a specific order, and that needs to work from the start. Sadly we cannot translate the new system to the current one, so a reset is the only way to go!
Money and experience numbers will be adjusted, you will no longer level up every 100xp. Now, each level will require more XP as you progress and upon reaching the end of level 100, you will unlock the option to prestige and reset your progress, with the reward of a new badge and title for your ID card.
Your current level will be saved and in the future, we will give you a unique badge for your player character to show off how far you made it pre-wipe. These will have different colors and materials depending on how high your level was. This will be the only way to unlock this specific badge, so get going!
8.1 will provide the much-needed Custom Difficulty values overhaul. The plan is to reduce the maximum reward multiplier from 24x down to around 15x (the Apocalypse challenge requirements will also be reduced to match), making custom games much closer in rewards to our default difficulty counterparts. We can then remove the cap that is currently in place for those games, resulting in much fairer rewards, and less "feel bad" when not playing the most optimal settings to farm XP and money.
With the addition of Custom Difficulty, we've found that a lot of players love harder game modes, so it's about time to start thinking about a new official difficulty: Insanity
As you can see, this is one step further down the rabbit hole after Nightmare. One less piece of evidence and some smaller changes make it much tougher to narrow down those paranormal entities!
We're also adding a brand new system to Phasmophobia, a rotational difficulty: Challenge Mode.
Each week a different challenge will be present in this difficulty slot, offering unique custom modes that are hand-made by us. You'll be able to play these modes in any location, but if you complete them three times in the specified location, you'll earn a large chunk of money and experience!
Challenge mode comes at no risk too; equipment is provided for you for free, and you'll lose nothing if you die! You can also complete each week's challenge solo or in multiplayer!
An example of one of the simpler challenges:
As you can see, in "Lights Out" you will have no access to the fuse box, and flashlights are not provided, so you'll have to use candles and other equipment such as glowsticks if you want to see anything!
Some of the other challenges you can expect range from an official "Hide and Seek" game with the ghost or an audio-only contract focused on Paranormal Microphones and Sound Sensors. We hope these unique contracts give you a reason to hop back into the game each week, as well as provide a nice boost to your funds without the worry of losing anything!
You'll be happy to hear that both Insanity and Challenge Mode will be added with 8.1 very shortly!
Alongside the above additions, the shop will also be getting some much-needed improvements!
Currently, loadouts are the primary way to quickly get your equipment into a game, but we can understand that a few reasons are stopping this from being a perfect system:
Some players don't like to use loadouts every time, and prefer to add equipment manually
If you want to add or remove a few items quickly, you either have to use the current Shop menu, which can take too many clicks, or keep one loadout free for quick adjustments
There is no way to tell what has been added to the lobby and what you may be missing
Some of the details were confusing, and needed more context
So, with that information and some in-depth conversation with some users in the Official Discord, we've decided to make the following changes:
Firstly, the shop/storage page will now function like an online shopping cart. You can add your items to the list with the + icons, then choose to Buy, Sell, Add or Remove. Once you're done, you can clear your list with the Trash icon. This makes adjusting your added loadout or making a quick removal much faster than the current system.
Secondly, an icon has been added to each shop item, displaying how many have been committed to the lobby and will appear in the truck once you've loaded in. This should reduce the amount of jumping back and forth between the shop and the lobby screen.
A look at the proposed changes:
For Loadouts, we're adding an "Auto add" button, which will add your selected loadout to the lobby as soon as you join one. This should save even more time when joining different games in solo or multiplayer. If you die or don't have enough items, you will need to rebuy the missing items (which can be done with one button press!) otherwise they won't be auto-added. We're also adjusting a few labels on this screen to help with identifying each number when creating or using a loadout.
Lastly, we're adding an "All Equipment" loadout that is unlocked for everyone as a 3rd slot.
While developing 8.1, we noticed some strange runes in the warehouse lobby...
What could these mean?
Are there more?
Who knows...
That's it for Development Preview #7. We'll catch you with some more teasers soon!
If you experience any issues or want to give feedback, please join the official Phasmophobia Discord: https://discord.gg/phasmophobia Thanks,