Phasmophobia - Development Preview #22

[u/KG_TomD]

Welcome back, Ghost Hunters.

We want to start this Development Preview, which contains a lot of exciting news for the rest of the year, with a heartfelt thank you to those that have continued to support us throughout this year. The feedback you’ve provided us has helped us shape Phasmophobia in the last few months and in what’s to come. 

After our Roadmap shift earlier in the year, we committed to a more transparent style of communication with you and we intend to stick with that. You can expect to hear much more from us as we work towards Phasmophobia 1.0 in late 2027.

With that said, let's get into the details. With this Development Preview, we’re going to be talking to the following topics:

• The upcoming Content Update.
• Phasmophobia’s move to Unity 6.
• New in-game warnings.
• Phasmophobia on XBOX Play Anywhere.
• Player Character Visual Update
• 42 Edgefield Road Rework.

There’s a lot of information to dig into, so we highly recommend getting settled in with a warm cup of [INSERT READER’S CHOICE OF BEVERAGE] and a couple of biscuits.

Firstly;

Introducing the Resonance Update

While we’ve been working on multiple updates over the Summer, one thing became clear - shipping these at different times was looking unreasonable, both for us and you. So instead, we’ve packaged together the Unity 6 update and our Content Update into one. We’re calling this Resonance, and it’ll be launching in late November**.** 

We’ll dive into more detail on the move to Unity 6 shortly, but let’s talk about some new features coming to Phasmophobia as part of Resonance first.

Up first, the Dowsing Rods.

Icons on the Sensor’s map will reflect the type of sound - a looping sound will stick around for a while whereas a single sound will ping once and disappear. Only sounds on the same floor will be identified by the Sound Sensor. You’ll also be able to use the Sound Sensor’s map as a way of determining a Ghost type based on the speed of movement, which will be especially useful during a Hunt.

As part of this update, we’ll also be introducing a new aspect of Voice Recognition, giving you the chance to instruct the Ghost to interact with nearby objects such as doors and switches and take action such as throwing objects or give a sign of their presence. These options will also be available for players that have their Voice Recognition mode set to Text. For VR players using Text mode, these options will be available via the Sanity watch where they’ll be able to use these commands.

To make sure you can keep track of what’s possible with Voice Recognition, we’re adding the below page to the Journal, listing out the usable phrases - no more shouting into the void in the hope you get it right! 

Finally, before we move on, you’ll now be able to select as many maps as you wish to create your own random map pool. We've also added new buttons to quickly select small, medium and large maps. The fourth icon, the dice, will serve the same purpose as the original Random Map polaroid. And hey, by removing a polaroid from the board, we make room for newer additions. That’s helpful!

Our Transition to Unity 6

For a while now, we’ve been speaking about our move to Unity 6 - the latest version of the engine Phasmophobia runs on. We apologise it’s taken a while to get to this point, but we’re happy to say we’ll be making the leap over to Unity 6 as part of Resonance. 

The biggest part of Unity 6 is focusing on Phasmophobia’s stability, performance and improving the overall experience for Ghost Hunters. It’s also a futureproofing exercise, opening up a lot of potential for the game - especially in the run up to Phasmophobia 1.0 later next year and our plans beyond that point. 

Since we began work on this iteration of the game, a lot of the reported bugs have been fixed within the Unity 6 update of Phasmophobia. With the release of this update in late November, you can expect to see lots - and we do mean lots - of bug fixes, general improvements and more implemented into the game. While we’ll share patch notes on release, a lot of the more common issues we see players encountering will be addressed with this update, including the more common crashes players have been experiencing.

Unity 6 has also given us the ability to improve the lighting across the board in Phasmophobia, to create a much more realistic and immersive experience for Ghost Hunters. While this isn’t an update that’s immediately visible to the naked eye, the video and images below show the difference of what’s now possible.

6 Tanglewood Drive interior with Heavy Rain weather.

6 Tanglewood Drive interior with Sunrise weather.

6 Tanglewood Drive exterior with Snow weather.

Alongside the above lighting changes, we’re introducing several new Settings to improve your time with Phasmophobia, ranging from graphical settings presets, an extreme shadow quality setting as well as overall quality presets and Eye Adaptation for VR players. We’re also implementing the following accessibility options for players that experience colour-blindness;

• Protanopia
• Protanomaly
• Deuteranopia
• Deuteranomaly
• Tritanopia
• Tritanomaly
• Achromatopsia
• Achromatomaly

As mentioned, the move to Unity 6 aims to greatly improve the overall performance of Phasmophobia for all players across CPU, GPU, VRAM and RAM usage, while also fixing any memory leaks we were seeing. We’re expecting this to be a significant improvement, but one we can only truly gauge when the update is in your hands. Once the update is live, we’ll be closely monitoring any and all feedback to see where we can continue to make improvements, so please do submit any bugs you encounter to our Help Centre so our team can investigate.

New In-Game Warning System

One part of the road to Phasmophobia 1.0 that is important to us is improving the overall player experience in-game. We want to investigate ways for your time spent in-game with others to be more rewarding and meaningful, and vitally, feel like a part of a community.

While we'll share more of our thoughts and ideas at a later stage, one piece of this that we're introducing as part of the Resonance update is a new system in-game that provides player's with a warning message if they have been found to be in violation of our Code of Conduct instead of immediately resulting in a ban - unless of course their actions are severe enough to receive an immediate ban.

We'll also be informing you if a report you have made has resulted in action taken against a player you've reported.

XBOX Play Anywhere

Finally, as part of the Resonance update, we’ll also be introducing Phasmophobia into the XBOX Play Anywhere program. This means that if you own Phasmophobia on XBOX already, you’ll be able to play it across any device that supports XBOX play - PC, laptops, ROG Ally and of course, XBOX Series X/S.

For more details on how the XBOX Play Anywhere program works, head over to the official website.

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The Resonance update is one of our biggest updates to date for Phasmophobia in terms of technicality and what it means for the game going forward. We’re excited to get it out to you and use it as a jumping off point for the next year’s worth of work, leading into Phasmophobia 1.0.

That said, there’s still more to come between now and then. To finish up, we wanted to share an update on our Player Character Visual Update as well as the next rework in line for release - 42 Edgefield Road.

Player Character Visual Update

Following on from our Player Character Update, we made the decision to add an extra update this year that focused on fleshing out the customisation and cosmetic side of Phasmophobia. With this we’ll be introducing over 30 new and unique cosmetics, each with their own colour and texture variants, improving the UI of the Customisation Shop and the character models themselves.

We had originally planned to ship this as part of the Resonance update, but we need to spend a bit more time on it to make sure it’s ready to make its way to you. Ultimately, we wanted to make sure Resonance is as solid and stable an update for everyone and this meant looking at each individual aspect and making the decision on what was ready, and what was not. 

We’ll share more details on when you can expect to see this update in Phasmophobia but in the meantime, we’re excited to share some screenshots of the upcoming cosmetics and UI rework as a preview.

42 Edgefield Road Rework

42 Edgefield Road is the next map in-line for a makeover, and our reworked version of it will be launching later this year. While we’ll share details on the rework closer to release, we wanted to leave you with a teaser in the form of the below screenshot.

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Resonance will be launching for Phasmophobia next month, and we hope that the details we’ve shared in this Development Preview have you excited for its release. In the run up to the update, we encourage you to ask us questions via our social channels, our Discord server and Help Centre if you would like to know any more specifics about what we’ve talked about today. 

We’re excited to round out this year with really strong updates and believe it’ll put us in a good place heading into 2027 and beginning the road to 1.0 - which we’ll make sure you join us for every step of the way. 

Thank you, Ghost Hunters.

[u/Mobius290]

Can't wait for everything to still be super broken and buggy.

[u/Delicious-Apple593 → u/Mobius290]

Havent most the bugs been patched by now? At least on PC maybe? Ive played for a few months now and only had some visual bugs nothing game breaking.

[u/ScriptedEvan → u/Delicious-Apple593]

Don't worry, they're just here to farm karma points off of complaining. I dont think they bothered to even read what changes are being made in the update 😂

I'll admit that "one" update was pretty devastating but since their recent fixes and such, it's been so much better so I dont get why it's as if the game is still a complete unplayable shitshow. But yeah run to the comments to get the complaint in without reading what's next update. That'll show em I guess.

[u/AssistantSea362 → u/Delicious-Apple593]

Xbox here, your game still occasionally crashes when interacting with the truck cameras

[u/louman84 → u/Delicious-Apple593]

Bugs always come back every time they do a big update like this. It's like clockwork.

[u/Ferahgost → u/Mobius290]

Been playing again the past couple weeks due to being back around Halloween season and we’ve really ran into no issues

[u/Sir_Eggmitton → u/Mobius290]

The move to a new engine scares me. Such a transition never goes cleanly.

[u/ScriptedEvan]

HOLY SHIT. MAP SELECTION CHANGES AND NEW ADDITIONS TO WAYS YOU CAN USE YOUR VOICE FOR THINGS????

omg I cannot wait for this update to happen along with Edgefield remaster.

but PLEASE keep the truck right at the front door 🙏

PLEASE DEVS

[u/gosty373]

please. Please. PLEASE Allow us to have infinite stamina outside of the house. I already don't like the stamina system, but currently running back and forth from the truck to get equipment is really boring and time consuming. Either that or make all trucks spawn closer to the door.

[u/anoobwithaspoon → u/gosty373]

You can do this with a custom difficulty. :)

[u/gosty373 → u/anoobwithaspoon]

Technically, you can. Thanks for pointing that out! However, that defeats the point of playing the game if you don't get any rewards. With allowing infinite sprint outside the house, it is more of a QOL change than making the game easier. It would be great as a settings toggle so whoever wants to use it can.

[u/SadPenisMatinee]

New tools and a remake of an old map looks fun. I really like the sound mic changes so I can tell WHERE the sound is coming from

Hoping Unity 6 looks good. I enjoy how the game looks but hopefully it looks better I suppose on 6

[u/Pricerocks]

This looks like a solid update. The dowsing rods will make perfect games much more achievable, and the random filter save me from dying inside when I pull Sunny Meadows. And anything that makes Sound Sensors more helpful gets a thumbs up from me, they’ve always been so under utilized by the game and players.

I hesitate to be downright optimistic; having played since launch I’ve seen many things go wrong and I’ve barely touched the game since the player character dework. I still don’t love the general direction of the game (the map reworks are an enormous waste of time imo) but it’s great to see us finally get some stuff everyone has been wanting.

[u/Independent_Sand_583]

You know, actually adding colour blind mode is a huge improvement from declaring that adding accessibility options was akin to cheating.

So thank you for your actual for real character improvement in yourselves.

That right there is some actions-speak-louder-than-words acknowledgement of being wrong and then being better. Good work

[u/Scape_Nation]

Did they abandon horror 2.0?

[u/Netsky200n → u/Scape_Nation]

Rolled into game version 1.0.

[u/ImmediateDay5137 → u/Scape_Nation]

Speaking as someone who only launches and plays phasmo during October, it's pretty disappointing coming back every year and still not seeing horror 2.0 out yet.

[u/Zelda_Momma → u/Scape_Nation]

They renamed it, basically

[u/alphabraingodBWC21cm]

Thank you for the accessibility considerations. Many devs do not provide colorblind options, let alone acknowledge things like deuteranomaly versus deuteranopia. Signed, very colorblind person

[u/namon295]

The new randomization options are very welcome. Not going to lie typically in the past your idea of improved lighting has been more dark on top of dark. You scaled back with Tangle and Willow and both of them are amazing to me because of it. So yes Extreme Shadows are an option let's hope the baseline stays the same as it is now. I'm also hoping the Yurei is allowed to have it's own distinct interactions with doors. Since you won't just undo the door physics update, I'm just now hoping you figure something else out for them. And according to Flash, Poltergeists are now broken too and don't throw as much. Here's hoping those "alot" (in italic no less) of bug fixes include those.

[u/Dogsteeves]

omg a 70s 80s house I can't tell but look like it from then

[u/antithrowawayy]

exciting! dowsing rods seem cool… grieving edgefield already.

[u/punk_lover]

Oh the dowsing rods look so cool!!!! Thank you devs for making and continuing to work on this amazing game

[u/harrybush316]

What are dousing rods supposed to do?

[u/Quietust → u/harrybush316]

Dowsing is a pseudoscientific method of locating objects. I'm guessing it will help find the Bone, any Cursed Possessions, and/or the Ghost itself.