Phasmophobia will linger in Early Access longer than planned

Phasmophobia - a lit Ouija board
(Image credit: Kinetic Games)

Phasmophobia may haunt Early Access longer than planned after the game's wildly popular launch convinced its developer to reconsider the scope of the multiplayer spooker.

Speaking to IGN, Kinetic Games' sole member, DKnighter, explained that they originally planned a fairly brief trip through Early Access. A few new maps, an extra ghost type or two, some new equipment to play with, and then push into a proper release.

"However, due to the game's popularity, everyone's expectations are increased," Dknighter writes, "so I am going to have to reconsider my plans for the game’s future." 

From the sounds of it, Dknighter was floored by the response to Phasmophobia, telling the outlet that they'd only expected the game to recoup its costs at best. However, with PC gaming being wildly unpredictable right now, Phasmophobia quickly found itself being one of the top-selling games on Steam.

"I was planning for the server capacity hitting a maximum of 500 players on launch day and it to drop off from there, as well as only aiming to make enough money to keep making more games. Now the game has over 2 million sales, with a player peak of around 90k.”

The extra time in Early Access will be used to focus on tightening the game up, with a host of stability and bug fixes due in the game's next update. After that, new content will be bundled together in big updates, with plans to push them to the game's beta client before going live.

If you do want a sneak peek at what's in the works, however, Kinetic Games keeps a public development Trello board.

Natalie Clayton
Features Producer

20 years ago, Nat played Jet Set Radio Future for the first time, and she's not stopped thinking about games since. Joining PC Gamer in 2020, she comes from three years of freelance reporting at Rock Paper Shotgun, Waypoint, VG247 and more. Embedded in the European indie scene and a part-time game developer herself, Nat is always looking for a new curiosity to scream about—whether it's the next best indie darling, or simply someone modding a Scotmid into Black Mesa. She also unofficially appears in Apex Legends under the pseudonym Horizon.