If you are unaware of what Phasmophobia is, this is a four-player online co-op psychological horror game. In which you and your team use the ghost-hunting equipment you have available to gather as much evidence on the Paranormal activity in the place you visit to detect what type of spirit is haunting the location. You can also play the game in single-player but, I would aim to play with friends and that is how it is best played – and personally over my time on PCVR previously I have only been tempted to play it with friends.

The basic flow of the game is always the same, you will all meet in a lobby, the host of the room will select a location to go and investigate. You will always start with one of each basic ghost-hunting tool, which is a D.O.T.S. Projector, EMF Reader, Ghost Writing Book, Spirit Box, Thermometer, UV Light, Video Camera and a Flash Light. However, each member can pitch in and buy more inventory from the online store, allowing you to take more than one of the item – which can help with the effectiveness of the investigation. Once at the location its your job to use the information provided in your investigation truck, which will also give you some extra optional tasks, show your teams sanity levels, what the spirit likes, a layout of the location, a computer to flick through cameras and hold your equipment. Now, its time for each player to chose the equipment they want to take with them and enter the property and start your investigation.

During you investigation you will you will get ghost events, this will help you in identifying the spirit type. Once you have enough information to determine what it is, you will need to select it in your journal and escape with your life. The ghost events are how you will decided on the spirit type, as these happen you will put check mark next to the event in the journal. For example: if you get a EMF reading of five, mark that off in your journal and it will remove any spirits on the list that do not cause a reading of five. However, let your sanity decrease to low and a hunt will start and the spirit could take out the member of your team with the lowest sanity, unless you find a safe place to hide like in cupboard and stay silent so the spirit can not locate your position. A players sanity can drop by spending too much time in the darkness or by witnessing a ghost event such as an object moving or a door opening/closing on its own. Players can increase their sanity level by going back into the light in the truck or popping some sanity pills you can purchase at the store in the lobby.

As mentioned previously people can buy more equipment in the store, the way you are going to boost your bank balance to buy equipment is by successfully completing your investigation – this means you have completed your contract and you will be rewarded with money. This can be spent on adding more of the basic equipment or adding other optional equipment to help you and your team. There are twelve pieces of optional equipment available, which includes items like a Crucifix which prevents the ghosts from hunting within a certain radius, Salt that you put down and a ghost could leave a footprint and a Photo Camera that is used to take photos of ghost interactions for additional profit at the end of the hunt – just to name a few. When it comes to additional equipment you buy, be it extra basics or optional if you fail the hunt you will loose all this equipment and be back to the basics you start with. However, successfully complete your investigation and get out alive and all your equipment will be saved and available on the next hunt – except if you have used a limited use item like an incense or sanity pills, these will need to be re-purchased.