Phasmophobia

Submission 5,337

Part of a series on Virtual Reality / VR. [View Related Entries]

About

Phasmophobia is a co-op VR-oriented video game in which the players assume the roles of a team of paranormal activity experts tasked with collecting evidence of ghost presence. The game gained significant popularity viral success on streaming platforms and YouTube.

History

On September 18th, 2020, British indie game developer Kinetic Games released an early access version of co-op video game Phasmophobia (lat. "fear of ghosts") (trailer shown below).^[1] In the game, the players assume the roles of a team of paranormal activity investigators who search for and confirm ghost presence in various locations.

Gameplay

In the game, players start as a team of up to four paranormal activity investigators who use ghost hunting equipment to search for paranormal presence in various locations. Players need utilize various equipment such as cameras, UV flashlights, ouija boards etc. to determine the type of entity haunting the location and collect evidence. As of October 2020, the game includes 12 types of paranormal entities, each exhibiting different behavior.^[2]

On September 27th, 2020, YouTube^[3] channel DryberGamers uploaded a beginner's guide for the game, with the video gaining over 336,700 views in one month (shown below).

Phasmophobia can be played both in standard and VR mode.

Reception

As of October 20th, 2020, the game maintained an Overwhelmingly Positive rating (96% positive) on Steam^[1] with 41,600 reviews submitted.

Fandom

Following the September 20th early access release, the game quickly garnered significant attention on streaming platforms such as Twitch and Facebook Gaming. On Twitch, the game peaked in popularity on October 3rd,^[4] with over 108,000 viewers after popular streamer xQc started broadcasting^[5] the game on October 1st. A YouTube^[6] highlight uploaded by xQc on October 2nd received over 474,000 views (shown below).

In early October 2020, the game became a popular subject of discussions and memes in the gaming community. For example, on October 6th, PewDiePie^[7] posted a Let's Play of the game, gaining over 4.6 million views in two weeks (shown below, left). October 13th, YouTuber^[8] videogamedunkey posted a humorous gameplay video that received over 1.7 million views in one week (shown below, right).