Phasmophobia: Nightmare Mode Ghost Guide (Halloween Update)

After the Halloween update, it was clear alot of players old and new didn’t know how to deal with the new content, some were calling it a coin toss, this guide was written to help to address some of these issues.

Whilst there are some ghosts that are difficult to test for – some combinations might be all but impossible for most solo players – either due to foresight by the Devs or luck, difficult ghosts have been mostly pared off with easier to solve ghosts.

In order to succeed in this difficulty, players must be very familiar with the game, be comfortable with looping as well as using hunts to identify ghosts. Maintaining a high sanity is a good idea until you’re ready to deal with the missing piece of evidence.

Smudge sticks are essential for survival and identifying the ghost, don’t waste them. If playing together and the ghost is about to catch up, let your team know when you’re about to use one, chances are everyone might use them making it extremely unsafe to test.

Teamwork is essential and speed is important, get in and get out as fast as you can and obviously, have fun.

This guide is a work in progress, it needs some fact checking here and there, Obake and Raija need worked on, but for the other 18 ghosts, I feel as though I’ve covered everything.

Notes on sanity:

Sanity drains at a fixed rate depending on map and whether or not if solo.

Small: 0.12 per second
Medium: 0.08 per second
Large: 0.05 per second

For professional there is a x2 multiplayer added to this, if playing solo, it gets reduced by 50%.

What this means is for solo players, you drop around 7.5% sanity per minute and for multiplayer you drop around 11 sanity per minute. You can try and use this to estimate your own sanity.

Smudge sticks:

Smudge sticks when lit produce a 6m AOE around the player which blinds the ghost for 6 seconds, it will also produce a 6m AOE on the last tick, however, this doesn’t mean that a single smudge stick can blind a ghost twice, it means if it’s outside the 6m when you light it, after 5.9 seconds it will do another AOE, if the ghost is chasing you and it’s close, this will save you.

Little known fact/bug, when lighting a smudge stick, the AOE is applied to everyone, so someone in the van can actually save a teammate by doing this.

Starting off we have Banshee, which is a perfect example of what I consider to be a difficult ghost to test for as it has no other tells other than it will ignore everyone other than its target – If the target is in the location.

On the smaller maps depending on spawn location etc, this makes kiting and looping more of a challenge and requires skilled investigators – In the event it’s not a banshee or that the first person who tries is actually it’s target, there is alot of risk involved.

The banshee can also start early hunts via its power but this is extremely rare and since sanity can no longer be read off of the monitor, I would not rely on this.

Demons are what I consider to be a medium risk ghost as its tell is by how fast it can re-hunt. The hunt cooldown timer was 25s – this may have changed in the update – however, demons can re-enter a hunt after 15 seconds. Once you’re in chain-hunt territory, counting the seconds will let you know if it’s a demon or not.

Disclaimer: I cannot find any information about this online, it just doesn’t exist. My only memory of this comes from Insym -possibly – doing an asylum no evidence run or an item roulette. This is also something that I don’t want to test for, there is only a 5% chance to get a demon now but with the current event on, the new ghosts have increased odds. – IIRC it was most likely item roulette and he was up against a mare.

If the above is completely wrong – and I somehow fabricated it, I only say this because I honestly can find zero evidence about this online and I’m not sitting through a bunch of 1hour asylum videos to confirm – slowly lowering the groups sanity can help identify a demon.

Goryo is what I consider an easy ghost to find, it has a simple tell and that is it will only appear on DOTS via a videocamera when no one is in the room. You can actually stand outside the room with the videocamera and it will still work.

There is an exception to this ghost, if you get EMF + Writing then Goryo is a very difficult ghost to find but thankfully for this combination, it’s in with easy testable ghosts.

Hantu is a temperature ghost, if the power is on and the rooms are warm, a hantu’s slow movements speed is going to be instantly recognisable. This is not a ghost you should have any issues with.

Jinn’s move fast with the power on, it can at times be mistaken for a Revenant but since these ghosts don’t share two pieces of evidence, you won’t confuse them. Because of recent changes involving speed and that if the Jinn has line of sight of a player it will move quickly to them -until 4m away – this ghost can actually pose a threat, sprint management, map awareness and a smudge stick are a must.

Turning the power off is a safe way to deal with a Jinn if you don’t want to test for it first, however in the event of getting Freezing + Fingerprints, by turning the power off if the ghost is actually a hantu, this ghost will speed up.

With the sanity meter gone, this ghost has almost no tells, the only thing that makes a Mare “stand out” is it won’t turn on the lights on it’s own ghost room. If you end up with Writing + Spirit Box you can’t use orbs to determine the ghost room.

Thankfully, mare has been pared with other ghosts that are easily testable.

Another method is to do the same for keeping track of a demon.

This one is a difficult ghost as I’m sure not alot of players frequently use the paramic, so they wont know what is considered “frequent” ghost sounds.

The other problem with Mylings is not alot of players have experience listening to footsteps either but these are two things you’ll need to learn in order to identify this ghost.

Personally I haven’t had much luck with this ghost, I don’t understand it’s strength at all.

This is still a WIP.

Oni is another difficult ghost, they can apparently throw things further than other ghosts but I’ve played enough phasmophobia to know that these ghosts can also throw things pathetically close as well. I’ve also seen a shade launch a spoon from the kitchen to the foyer on Ridgeview, so for me this is pretty unreliable. They also get more active around multiple players but I don’t think this is a good indicator. Ghosts having “unique behaviour” was abandoned along time ago according to the anniversary stream.

Unfortunately, if you end up with Freezing + DOTS – Yurei, Oni, you’re going to have a hard game, depending on the location this might actually be impossible. The only way to tell is to find the ghost room, set up motion sensors in another room and hope the ghost wanders in and smudge it. If it’s a yurei, it will be trapped in that room for 90seconds.

This ghost is probably get patched soon but it’s easy to confirm a Onryo by repeatedly dropping a candle – not placing it, dropping it, use the throw button – and relighting it. This ghost can be made to hunt at 100% sanity this way. In this state, it’s the easiest ghost to find in all of Phasmophobia.

Phantoms used to be an easy ghost to tell but due to recent updates for torches flickering – and even now during manifestations – players will need to pay attention to see if it’s a real hunt of not, getting a picture of this ghost will make it disappear but it will continue to make a noise – Just don’t get too close the ghost as it will make it disappear.

For this ghost, using and laying out multiple candles should help you identify the slow flicker speed of a phantom, if it’s the new “predator” ghost, this will be nearly impossible. – This ghost model will probably be updated over time.

Poltergeist’s are another hard ghost to test for as seeing it’s ghost power in action is quite rare – my own experience of seeing it’s power was always via the activity chart.

Once you have found the ghost room, players should make small piles of objects in the room and outside the room, that way if a poltergeist ever uses it’s ability, it should be obvious by how many items have been moved. Leaving EMF readers near these piles is a good indicator.

Depending on the map/location there are always plenty of items that can be quickly thrown together for this. It’s not guaranteed that it will ever use it’s ability but you might as well prepare for it.

The poltergeist unfortunately has two difficult groups, Fingerprints + Spirit box – Phantom, Poltergeist and Writing + Spirit Box – Spirit, Potergeist, Mare.

If you end up with Phantom, Poltergeist, see how to identify a Phantom.

If you end up with Spirit, Poltergeist, mare, pray that it’s a spirit, you’re in for a long/boring/difficult game as you don’t have ghost orbs to check to see if a Mare turned the ghost rooms light on.

In the event of Poltergeist vs Mare, you’ll need to find the ghost room, hopefully it hasn’t cooled down multiple rooms yet, setup the piles as before and use smudge sticks to make the ghost more active. Mares won’t turn their own rooms light on, but a poltergeist will. Setting up small piles greatly aids in identifying poltergeists.

No experience with this ghost yet.

WIP.

Revenant has to be the most iconic ghost in all of Phasmophobia, easily has the most kills to it’s name. Any time you have a Revenant as a potential ghost, this will be the first ghost you test for, watch it sprint towards you, smudge and run. It might be best for two players to work together and have multiple smudge sticks.

This ghost doesn’t share evidence with a Jinn, so they can’t be confused.

This ghost is going to be difficult on solo, it’s a ghost that’s built around having multiple players.

For solo, the bad combo is Emf + Freezing: Jinn, Shade, Oni, Twins, behaviour was confirmed to not be a thing by DK on the anniversary stream so Shade vs Oni is going to be difficult. Pray for multiple long range throws.

Playing in multiplayer, this ghost becomes easier to find, this ghost will “eventually” hunt when players are near it, these hunts will have long delays between them, leave the area near the ghost and watch the hunt rate increase is an easy tell for this ghost in multiplayer.

This is another easy ghost to test for, just wait until it gets into chain hunt territory and use a smudge stick on it, it will be prevented from hunting for 180s. Best to do this twice to confirm.

The twins is actually 2 ghosts which means interactions can happen in different places, using motion sensors and scattering objects around a room can be used to identify twins or not, ghosts can only interact with objects that are close by, if the twins are seen to the right and something is thrown on the left, you have the twins.

This ghost is all about observation.

Wraith is another easy ghost to find, when it steps in salt it doesn’t leave UV footprints. It can also be found when it uses it’s ghost power to teleport to a player and does a ghost event, these events usually happen far away from its room so it’s a good indicator. Also the place that the wraith teleported from leaves an EMF reading of 2, if a door/light/piano/sink/window wasn’t interacted with, then it’s a wraith.

There is also the very rare teleport + hunt combo they can do but this is probably the rarest of all the things that can happen in a game.

Yokai is another slightly difficult ghost since it needs to be tested when hunting, simply watching and yelling at the ghost will make it obvious if this is a yokai or not.

And finally, we have the Yurei. Yurei identification is all about motion sensors and smudge sticks. Track this ghost into another room using motion sensors and use a smudge stick on it, it will become trapped in that room for 90s. This ghost is kind of challenging but it should become obvious once it gets stuck in a room, using multiple smudges is a good way to confirm.