Phasmophobia Is a New Steam and Twitch Sensation

Phasmophobia arrived on Steam Early Access just four weeks ago, and has already hit the heights of the most-played games on Steam, and the top 5 most-streamed games on Twitch in the last week. A co-op ghost hunting game (playable across VR and non-VR) that mixes puzzle solving and jump scares, Phasmophobia's picked up huge traction among streamers and YouTubers, and flown up Steam's most-played charts in the last week. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/10/09/phasmophobia-official-announcement-trailer"] At time of writing, according to Steam Charts, the game hit an all-time peak of concurrent players on October 8, with 70,195. That record has been broken every day for the last week, a trend we can expect to see continue across the weekend. That success is likely connected to the game's increasing popularity on Twitch. According to Twitch Tracker, Phasmophobia has been the 5th most-streamed game in the last week, beating out Fortnite, FIFA 21 and Counter-Strike on the way. Phasmophobia has you exploring haunted locations, using a variety of ghost hunting equipment - both folkloric and technological - to identify types of ghosts, before escaping without being killed. It heavily uses voice chat, both to stay in contact with teammates and to contact the procedurally generated spirits themselves. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=phasmophobia-8-screenshots&captions=true"] Currently in Early Access, the game's selling at £11 / $14 USD, and is currently planned for full release in 2021. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.