Phasmophobia devs say all that live service malarkey can do one: they focus on making 'a fun game that people want to play because it's fun'

One of the character models in Phasmophobia, he's standing in the truck with a flashlight on his shoulder. He's also holding an upgraded Spirit Box.

Phasmophobia is one of those unproblematic success stories. It launched in early access with such a well-conceived and executed core experience that I breathlessly proclaimed it "the best ghost game ever made." In the five years since, developer Kinetic Games has slowly but surely built Phasmophobia into the PC's definitive spook-buster (to the extent there's now a small niche in Phasmo-alikes).

Probably the biggest tribute I can pay Phasmophobia, though, is that it's still on my SSD. I don't play it all the time, but it's one of those games where someone suggests it as a palate-cleanser after some sweaty PVP, and everyone's instantly on-board. It even helps to return infrequently, because more often than not Kinetic's added or tweaked something to make it feel new. The Steam reviews tell their own story: approximately 340,000 of them have it sitting pretty at "overwhelmingly positive."