Phasmophobia

Worth buying? What 300 Steam reviews say.Worth buying? Here’s what 300 Steam reviews actually say.

Very Positive · 95%Very Positive · 95%2020

The verdict

A hugely fun co-op ghost-deduction game that shines with friends, but the latest character and animation update and long-running dev issues have soured many veterans. Skip it if you'd play solo or hate buggy polish.

Great for

Friend groups who enjoy deducing ghost types, screaming together and chaotic proximity-chat moments

Main risk

Buggy, janky recent update and repetitive gameplay, plus frustration with the developers

What changed in the last 30 days

154 recent reviews

Many recent reviews cite the large character/animation update as causing bugs, worse optimization, ghost behavior errors, client timeouts and settings resets. Fairly confident, since the complaints are widespread.

154 recent reviews

What players love

Best with friends

Mentioned in ~2 in 5 positive reviews

“The scares are 90% your friends panicking over proximity chat. Solo it's a chore, with a group it's a riot.”
Steam review · 14.5 h played ↗

“if you can get your friends together, then you'll likely have endless laughs (and screams).”
Steam review · 18 h played ↗

“Playing with friends is just awesome”
Steam review · translated from Russian · 18.4 h played ↗

Tense, scary atmosphere

Mentioned in ~1 in 5 positive reviews

“The scariest part is when all of a sudden your friend disappears and you just hear how the door locks while the lights go out, brutal”
Steam review · 27.4 h played ↗

Satisfying ghost deduction

Mentioned in ~1 in 8 positive reviews

“Deducing the ghost by process of elimination on Nightmare or Insanity difficulties never fails to make me feel like some sort of paranormal wizard and I love it.”
Steam review · 348.7 h played ↗

“You're not just scared anymore. You're investigating, testing, and figuring out what kind of ghost you're dealing with.”
Steam review · 158.8 h played ↗

What players complain about

Constant bugs and broken ghost behavior

Mentioned in ~1 in 3 negative reviews

“Ghost behaviors randomly malfunction (Shade being super active AND hunting while you're in the room, for example - one of many)”
Steam review · 480.7 h played ↗

“ghosts are bugged and aren't showing proper behaviors, almost like they're all mimics.”
Steam review · 77.9 h played ↗

Update broke animations and models

Mentioned in ~1 in 3 negative reviews

“there are bugs everywhere, customization is slim, the new models aren't really any better, and the animations are horrendous.”
Steam review · 373.8 h played ↗

“animations with every single interaction, all of which slows down the game dramatically.”
Steam review · 616.2 h played ↗

“With them came clunky animations: you could go make coffee while you turn on all the flashlights”
Steam review · translated from Russian · 201 h played ↗

Devs neglect game, slow content

Mentioned in ~1 in 5 negative reviews

“This game has been in early-access for SIX YEARS. The goalpost as to when the game will be "finished" changes with every new patch.”
Steam review · 149.3 h played ↗

“5 years into early access, and the game is basically a slightly reskinned version of itself.”
Steam review · 119.8 h played ↗

Connection timeouts and settings resets

Mentioned in ~1 in 12 negative reviews

“Fix multiplayer. With or without a VPN, client time out.”
Steam review · translated from Russian · 15.1 h played ↗

“Every single time I join the game, my settings are scrambled or things I turn on have turned off.”
Steam review · 160.4 h played ↗

Repetitive and grindy

Mentioned in ~1 in 14 negative reviews

“The gameplay, while fun the first few times, breaks down into a repetitive grind.”
Steam review · 62.2 h played ↗

“The game is very repetitive and gets boring quickly.”
Steam review · 2.2 h played ↗

Toxic players and cheaters

Mentioned in ~1 in 25 negative reviews

“the amount of homophobic remarks I have to go through online is outrageous.”
Steam review · 15.6 h played ↗

“so disheartening that there are so many cheaters in the game.”
Steam review · 108.3 h played ↗

System requirements

From the Steam store page

Steam Deck: Playable

Minimum

OSWindows 10 64Bit

ProcessorIntel Core i5-4590 / AMD Ryzen 5 2600

Memory8 GB RAM

GraphicsNVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD Radeon R9 390

Storage21 GB available space

Recommended

OSWindows 10 64Bit

ProcessorIntel Core i5-10600 / AMD Ryzen 5 3600

Memory8 GB RAM

GraphicsNVIDIA RTX 2060 / AMD Radeon RX 5700

Storage21 GB available space

OSWindows 10 64Bit

ProcessorIntel Core i5-4590 / AMD Ryzen 5 2600

Memory8 GB RAM

GraphicsNVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD Radeon R9 390

Storage21 GB available space

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