The psychological term for fear of ghosts is ghost-hunting teams of reality shows like Ghost-Hunters, players in Phasmophobia must investigate evil spirits within a variety of haunted houses and places, a task made frightening not from jump scares, but through gameplay mechanics which immerse players in an atmosphere of dread and keep them guessing what will happen next.
Viewed from the outside, the antics of modern-day paranormal investigators in Ghost Hunters and Buzzfeed Unsolved can seem rather ridiculous. A group of people with cameras and EMF readers wander through a dark, spooky haunted house, shouting at and belittling the open air in an attempt to make ghosts appear. In situations where no ghosts are to be found, the efforts of these ghost hunters can look rather silly...
...but in the Phasmophobia consistently foregoes gore and grotesque "Ooga Booga" moments in favor of scare tactics with a more subtle bent.
Phasmophobia Game Sessions Start Out Calm & Slowly Build Tension
Whenever players start up a new mission in Phasmophobia, the first part of their investigation is relatively calm and sedate, as PC Gamer describes: at first, the ghost hunters creep through a dimly lit building with flashlights and ghost-hunting tools in hand. Their goal is to investigate each room in the "haunted house" one by one, and for the most part, they find nothing but furniture and empty air. At points, they'll even be tempted to make the classic horror movie mistake and split up to cover more ground.
Eventually, as they home in on the ghost's location in Phamophobia, more spookier phenomena starts to occur – flickering flashlights, strange apparitions, creepy noises, ghost-writing, scary photographs, voices on the radio, etc. Eventually, depending on how much players have provoked it, the ghost might switch into a "hunting mode" where it pursues and tries to kill players. The root of this horrifying experience, though, isn't the moment where the ghost flips out, but everything leading up to it – the tense moments where nothing happens, and players are sweating buckets waiting for the ghost to appear.
Phasmophobia Keeps Its Ghosts (Mostly) Mysterious & Unseen
Not so surprisingly, Phasmophobia is a very dark game based around exploring poorly lit haunted buildings, and this lack of light is key to how developers at Kinetic Games are trying to unsettle players with the unknown. In lightless areas, ghost hunter can only see what's illuminated in the narrow circle of their flashlight, making every glimpse of a ghostly apparition terrifyingly incomplete.
Phasmophobia also has a sanity mechanic similar to those seen in games like Amnesia: the Dark Descent, where lingering in darkness for too long drains a player's sanity, but sources of light will cause hostile hunting ghosts to home in on the player's location faster. To survive, players must at times shut off their flashlights and hide in dark rooms, a strategy which makes it harder for them to discern the true shape of the ghosts pursuing them. To paraphrase horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, there's no greater fear than the fear of the unknown.
Phasmophobia Switches Up The Rules of Survival Each Session
Phasmophobia also plays on the "fear of the unknown" principle by randomizing each ghost hunt, combining different ghost archetypes with different haunted locations during each match of a game session. Each types of Ghost, whether it be Wraith, Mare, Demon, or Jinn, has a different set of behaviors, abilities and weaknesses. To discover these aspects, players must locate the ghost's abode and identify their type by cataloguing certain phenomena, taking measurements with their ghost-hunting tools, and even calling out certain phrases through the voice chat which can provoke a reaction from said ghost. The act of observing a ghost in Phasmophobia, though, frequently causes it to lash out - even a careless word or scream expressed on the voice chat can trigger the most horrifying developments.
Phasmophobia Challenges the Teamwork Abilities of Players
Players in a team match of Phasmophobia must work together in order to explore their haunted house, identify the resident ghost, and complete their mission, but once a ghost switches into hunting mode, all bets are off. When a bloodthirsty ghost is rampaging through the halls, will they stick together and try to save each other with a Smudge Stick, or will they throw each other to the metaphorical wolves to save their own skin? Even as the players observe and tests the ghosts they hunt, the ghosts - and Phasmophobia by extension - tests the players to see what they'll do in the face of fear and dread.
Source: PC Gamer
