Phasmophobia's Big Success Has Its Developer Rethinking Their Early Access Plans

The ghost-hunting multiplayer game Phasmophobia has become the latest overnight success on the Steam charts. A lot of players are booting it up to find ethereal oddities with their friends, and that popularity has its developer reworking their previous plans for early access.

In an interview with IGN, the developer of Phasmophobia—Kinetic Games, helmed by one lone creator who goes by the name Dknighter—talks about their early access plans. Initially, plans were short; add some maps, ghost types, and equipment to assist in hunting down specters. With increased popularity comes increased expectations though, and now plans are being reconsidered, Dknighter tells IGN.

"At the moment my only focus is getting the major bugs fixed before I begin working on new content," Dknighter tells IGN. "These bug fixes would usually be sent out when they are ready but, due to me having to update a lot of the game's code, a lot of new systems need testing, so the next update will be a big stability and bug fix update. After these bugs are fixed the new content will likely get bundled together in big updates."

New updates roll out through the beta version of the game, which is accessible to players on Steam. Other options, which could be seen on Dknighter's public development Trello board, once included things like PvP. But Dknighter says they have no plans to add another mode, as it would "turn the game into something completely different," pushing it away from what Dknighter wants it to be.

If you haven't seen Phasmophobia yet, it's a four-player co-op multiplayer ghost-hunting sim. Players have to explore various haunted locales, using different tools like a radio, a camera, and other detection methods like air temperature to suss out what manner of creature roams the halls. It's also good to not anger the ghost, because it can turn on the group and start hunting them.

It's a creepy, haunting game that has been topping Steam charts alongside the likes of Hades, Cyberpunk, and fellow multiplayer success Among Us. It's not hard to imagine why, in the month of October and in the midst of stay-indoors orders, a co-op ghost-hunting sim became popular. The question is what Dknighter does with it—according to IGN, it seems like Phasmophobia will remain in Early Access for longer than planned and could be more ambitious. For now though, the focus is on improving and refining what's there before anything new.