KEY POINTS

  • "Phasmophobia's" player counts spiked after the release of a new update
  • The "Expositions" update added new features, like new ghosts, tools and a new sprinting mechanic
  • The update also fixes many bugs and adds quality-of-life changes to the game

The cooperative ghost hunting game “Phasmophobia” recently saw a large spike in players after the developers released the new “Exposition” update, which introduced a plethora of changes and additions to the game.

The sudden wave of players was apparently big enough to put “Phasmophobia” back to Steam’s top 10 most played games at the time, as per GitHyp — an impressive feat for a game that was once seen as just a passing fad. SteamDB recorded a peak player count of 62,448 within the past 30 days, greatly overshadowing July’s peak count of just 17,869.

New and old players returned to “Phasmophobia” after developer Kinetic Games released an update that added new ghosts, reworked mechanics, bug fixes and plenty of quality-of-life changes.

Phasmophobia's truck allows players to monitor situations in total safety
Phasmophobia's truck allows players to monitor situations in total safety Kinetic Games

Kinetic Games gave “Phasmophobia” some big improvements on almost all fronts. Gameplay has been slightly refined to become more frantic and panic-inducing. For starters, actual Sprinting has been added to the game to make running away from ghosts feel more urgent. Instead of the old sprint feature that only made people walk slightly faster, players will now be able to actually run for three seconds before the ability goes on cooldown for the next five seconds.

To compensate for this, ghosts will accelerate faster when they can see players and they will also move sooner once they begin hunting. These changes should make running and hiding feel more tense and, ultimately, more fun for players.

Two new ghosts are getting added to the game: the Goryo and the Myling. However, Kinetic Games has changed the evidence requirements of each of the other ghosts, making all of them feel a little bit more different than in the previous versions. A new DOTS projector has been added to the game to help find a new evidence type that’s tied to the revamped system.

The new piece of equipment, along with the rest of the players’ arsenal, will be affected by ghosts when they start haunting. Ghosts will now be attracted to open electronics like flashlights, cameras, sensors, spirit boxes and other tools, as well.

Other changes include map lighting improvements, new audio and visual effects, ghost and equipment adjustments, UI improvements and a plethora of bug fixes, making this the best time to jump back into the game.

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