7 Phasmophobia tips and tricks for new ghost hunters on PS5 and Xbox

Ghost hunting is hard at the best of times, but when you're sent to increasingly spooky locales with a pittance in reward money for risking your life, you're going to want to get the hunt over with as fast as possible, with minimal casualties.

launched on and |S – just in time for . The game has been on in early access since 2020, and the console launch has opened up the gates to players on and , and , so you can play with your buddies no matter which platforms you're on. Just bear in mind that this isn't the release of the final, polished product, so if you do decide to pick it up, don't expect perfection. That being said, I've not run into any major issues during my time with the game so far.

If you've been playing the game for a while, then I doubt you'll need these Phasmophobia tips and tricks for beginners, but if you're a newcomer on console, you may find them very handy! The entries below range from basic strategies to covering points you may be struggling with – like getting in-game voice chat to work on PS5, for example. So, be sure to familiarise yourself with the basics before embarking on your first hunt.

Without further ado, here are seven Phasmophobia tips and tricks for new ghost hunters on PS5 and Xbox.

READ MORE:

READ MORE:

Push to talk is also for walkie talkies

Seems obvious, but myself and a few other hopeless hunters out there struggled with this one. The first thing to be aware of is that there are two chat options: local and global. Local is based on your proximity to other players, while global is the team at large, no matter where they are on the map. These options only apply if you're using in-game chat rather than setting up your own party – which you should totally be doing for the spookiest experience possible.

Local chat is set to push-to-talk as default. So no matter how close you are to other players, you need to push the assigned button to talk. The clue's right there in the name. You can also set it to voice activation (an open mic basically), or toggle (open/ closed mic). Regardless of which setting you opt for, with local chat, the further away party members are from each other, the quieter they become.

Global is for chatting to the team at large, which is handy if you're splitting up – and especially if you're running a team including a truck teammate who tends to be the bravest player and is definitely not a coward who can't handle ghost hunts but still wants to feel included. Global chat is push-to-talk only.

The two chat options are assigned their own dedicated buttons, and global chat can also be activated using the in-game walkie-talkie on your belt. There are conflicting reports on whether ghosts can hear you based on your local mic/chat setting or if they're always listening, so stay quiet, keep comms to a minimum, and pray. This is the takeaway here.

Use these three items first

For those of you who are feeling like Mister Big Balls, forgo the flashlight. Yes, you heard that right. Of course, if you have a full party, this isn't something you may need to do, but in the interest of getting in and out before the ghost starts hunting you, we want to ID it as fast as possible. There are 24 ghost types in total, with their own strengths, weaknesses and three evidence traits i.e. the equipment you can use to ID them. Each of the seven pieces of starter equipment (save for the flashlight) can find evidence traits for 10 of the ghosts on the list, apart from the Spirit Box, and Thermometer which show up across 11 of them.

Combining the Video Camera (for Ghost Orb), UV light (for handprints), and EMF Reader (for level 5 activity) means we can see in the dark while looking for telltale Ghost Orbs with the camera, eliminate of confirm 11 ghosts with the Thermometer, and detect activity – as well as looking out for level 5 activity in one trip. If the ghost decides to start moving or touching things, point the camera at it, use the EMF Reader on the objects it interacted with, and check them for prints.

Once you use these to ID the ghost room, I'd lay the Ghost Writing Book down and grab the Spirit Box; turn off the lights in the ghost room (while keeping the lights in the surrounding area on) to increase the likelihood of activity, and use the EMF Reader to zero in on the ghost. Switch to the Spirit Box and start trying to communicate. You can also position the D.O.T.S Projector on the floor/ a table, etc, to try to catch a glimpse of spirits. Just be warned that the starter D.O.T.S Projector isn't that great, and the upgraded version will do a much better job.

Throw equipment through the front door before entering

In case you didn't notice, there's a timer in the truck, which is how long you have before ghostly goings-on start kicking off – your grace period, if you will. As soon as you open the door to the site, it starts ticking down. Given that we want to take a lot (if not all) of our equipment into the house – and oftentimes more than the three-item limit –this is a great way to get things like the Ghost Writing Book situated.

When you finally decide to enter, using this clipping trick or not, it's worth having a pile of equipment near the entrance so you and your teammates can quickly access them. Remember, some ghosts like to throw your stuff around or leech off the power they emanate, so anything you don't need or aren't using is best left in a handy pile outside. This may be something that's patched out eventually, but the advice to throw your stuff in a pile by the entrance still stands.

Turn on the breaker

This doesn't necessarily apply to amateur difficulty, but oftentimes the breaker will be off, which can affect detection of one of the most useful ghost tells – a temperature drop. Given that the most three pieces of starter equipment we want to take with us on our first pass includes the thermometer, we want to turn the power on so the heating comes on (presumably), making it easier to identify if a room is chilly because of a ghost, or because of the lack of power. The site map in the truck should display the breaker location, so be sure to make a beeline for that first. We also want to prevent our sanity from draining (for optional low sanity objectives, leave this for last) and standing in well-lit areas with the big light on does exactly that.

Close doors behind you

I know, I know – why are we closing off our escape routes like a bunch of clowns? Because we're ghost hunters who are risking it all for a few hundred bucks and we need to get in, find and ID the ghost, and get the hell out of there before things take a turn for the scarier. Ghosts love popping light bulbs, throwing things around, and walking through doorways like they were raised in a barn. so if we close all of the doors as we explore, it'll make zeroing in on their ghost activity locations to gather evidence a whole lot easier. Plus, you can whip out the UV light to check the doors for their sticky little handprints, which helps with the ID process.

Dead teammates can be useful

So you got got. Too bad. At least you can be more useful to your team dead than you were when you were alive. Players who have been ushered to the other side by a ghost will no longer be in danger from them, and while they can hear all players, they are unable to communicate with the living.

They can, however, pick up and throw/place items, sprint without running out of stamina, pass through walls and doors, trip motion sensors, and speak to one another. So you can still assist your team if you spot a bone or know where the ghost is headed – which you can't see when you're dead, may I add, likely because the mystique would be ruined by seeing them wandering around a house opening and closing doors while ignoring you. Slightly less scary. You can even get creative and have the living and dead teammates devise a way to speak to each other using the motion sensor sounds or by interacting with objects.

Keep your journal up-to-date

And lastly, keep updating your journal as you cycle through your equipment to record whether or not the ghost reacted. On console, you can click on an evidence line once to check it as a yes, and twice to cross it out for a no. The selection of the ghosts it can't be will get greyed out, narrowing down your choices until you can make a positive ID. Maybe you give that task to your truck teammate so they feel important, or maybe you just keep on top of your own admin, but the main objective in every case is to identify the ghost doing the haunting. The sooner you do that, the sooner you can all hightail it out of there.