‘I don’t actually play horror games’: Phasmophobia’s lead developer had no intention of making a horror game but still kicked off a whole new genre
I’ll never forget the first time my friends and I played Phasmophobia. It was like nothing I’d ever played before, absolutely hilarious, and surprisingly terrifying—it still is. So it’s rather funny to me that not only does Phasmo’s creator not really play horror games but he didn’t intend to make one either.
“I failed to make a co-op puzzle game,” director and lead developer Daniel Knight told my colleague Andrea Shearon during an interview at Summer Game Fest. “Or a co-op puzzle horror game. I didn’t really settle to make a ghost-hunting game. It just ended up being the kind of perfect fit.
“But the main goal was to make a social co-op puzzle game where you actually had to stand next to your friends and figure the puzzle out together. And then the horror is kind of like the secondary part—it just happened to be the perfect fit.”
Now Knight mentions it, I can totally see where he’s coming from with the puzzle idea. Trying to figure out what kind of ghost it is by working together as a team, using various tools, and having a checklist is just like solving a puzzle. It’s just a scary one which also involves you getting chased around a house by a red-eyed demon child.
Having a horror game that isn’t necessarily focused on being scary but instead works at being tricky to solve and an immersive experience for you and your friends may be what makes Phasmophobia so memorable. The best moments in Phasmo always come from someone messing up a test or a ghost surprising the team by doing something that we hadn’t accounted for.
I still remember playing on the Brownstone High School map with some mates where all the signs pointed us towards the ghost being in one of the rooms on the ground floor next to the stairs. We ended up having a massive argument as half of us didn’t think it was actually in this room after finding no physical evidence. It wasn’t until the ghoul appeared behind us that we realised the EMF Reader and Sound Sensor were actually pointing us towards the room directly above where we’d set up shop.
It may seem kind of weird at first, but maybe a horror game from someone who doesn’t massively love horror games isn’t such a bad idea. “I don’t actually play horror games,” Knight says. Although when pressed, he did admit that he’s dabbled in a bit of Content Warning.
I love Content Warning, and don’t get me wrong it can be absolutely terrifying when you’re being chased by the Snail Man or flipped upside down by the Ceiling Star, but it’s also probably the most tame co-op game to come out recently. But hey, a horror game’s still a horror game, and I don’t think Knight has to prove anything, not after making Phasmophobia.
