Phasmophobia is really the perfect game for the Halloween season. Anyone who’s tuned into travel themed TV channels late at night has probably seen one of the many shows about ghost hunting that have cropped up over the years. However, no game captures the feeling of ghost hunting quite like Phasmophobia. It’s an intimate, chilling, and borderline suffocating simulation of a first-hand experience with the supernatural. Ever since Phasmophobia entered early access in September, it’s been the go-to game for countless people, garnering thousands of viewers on Twitch and many more players.
However, even with all this success in mind, one has to wonder if it’ll last forever. The truth is there’s a lot of reasons that Phasmophobia’s popularity might dwindle after the end of October. What, then, will Kinetic Games do to mitigate that possibility? Phasmophobia is an incredibly unique game, and it’d be a shame if the game fell into ignominy after a good six weeks of extreme popularity. There’s a lot of obstacles in the games way that might give it a hard time developing staying power, but hope isn’t lost. Here’s what’s getting in this rising horror star’s way and what could change to keep the game going strong.
The most basic problem that Phasmophobia is facing is simply the virtue of it being a horror game released before Halloween. There’s nothing keeping people from playing horror games year round, but as 2020 gives way to cozier holidays, players might not have as strong an appetite for horror. Many currently dedicated streamers on Twitch are bound to move on to non-horror games after the end of October, driving attention to different genres and edging Phasmophobia out. In spite of all the game’s strengths, it just might not be the kind of game experience people are looking for by late November.
There’s also the problem of what exactly the latter end of the holiday season still holds for gaming. It’s starting to get down to only a handful of weeks before the PS5 and the Xbox Series X finally become available to consumers. There’s a slew of AAA games coming to market around the same time. That means that players’ attention is bound to be drawn to these brand new high profile titles and away from Phasmophobia. It’s hard for an indie game with a one-man development team to compete with blockbuster franchises and entries hand-crafted for next-gen consoles.
Speaking of development, the fact that Phasmophobia is still in early access is also very important to the game’s success beyond Halloween. Although it’s undoubtedly a unique game, it’s also unfinished. There’s a lot that Kinetic Games hasn’t put in the game yet, and admittedly there’s lots of bugs that need addressing. As new maps and other features get rolled out during early access, there’s bound to be even more issues. The game has to survive the end of the most appropriate month for horror while still working to improve itself.
Although there’s lots of obstacles, there’s lots of good things in store for Phasmophobia‘s future too. Kinetic Games has a public roadmap available where players can see what its planning to change and add to the game down the line. Probably the most significant upcoming changes to the game are the new maps coming up. Phasmophobia will get at least three new maps in the near future, among them a prison, a mansion, and an apartment building. New maps are crucial to keeping player interest in the game. There’s only seven maps in the game right now, so highly dedicated players have already mastered many of them. The more places that players can hunt all the different kinds of ghosts, the more unique each hunt is.
There’s also some changes ahead to core mechanics like the equipment and the leveling system. Kinetic Games has plans to put night vision goggles in the game, for instance. The more useful items are in the game, the more ways players have to interact with ghosts. Streamers and players alike enjoy testing their skills with hunts using limited and specific equipment, and adding more item types might encourage that. Reworking the leveling system will probably make progression more meaningful for diehard Phasmophobia players too. The linear progression system has allowed players to already get to level 1000.
The roadmap alone isn’t going to give Phasmophobia a second life, though. Kinetic Games should really pay attention to the things fans are needing in the game. For instance, a lot of top level players are hoping for a more challenging difficulty than Professional. For a game with a seemingly infinite level system, three difficulties is admittedly a meager amount of options. Some sort of Exorcist or Nightmare difficulty that demands much more of players than Professional would encourage Phasmophobia players to improve their skills, whether that means more aggressive ghosts or increasingly duplicitous behavior.
Other fan hopes include basic optimization. For instance, there’s no offline play in Phasmophobia. Even lone wolves have to create a private lobby to choose a job and get to work. The good news is that this wish is on the roadmap. That seems like evidence that Kinetic Games is sensitive to the ways in which Phasmophobia can step up its game. Other wishes for smarter ghosts and things for dead players to do also look like they’ve been heard, based on adjustments that are on the way.
Ultimately, this might be the way that Phasmophobia thrives after Halloween. Twitch doesn’t have to be the arbiter of which games thrive at any given time. If Kinetic Games focuses on connecting with its established player base and listens to their hopes and wishes for the game, Phasmophobia can develop a valuable reputation as a game that pays attention to its players. That kind of reputation will be valuable for Kinetic Games down the line, too, if it moves on to other projects down the line. Even though the season for horror is ending, ghosts will be haunting farmhouses and high schools all year round. Hopefully Phasmophobia keeps encouraging ghost hunters to fight the good fight.
Phasmophobia is available on PC.
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