Last year was defined by a number of surprise indie gaming fads. Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout turned the battle royale genre on its head with its wacky platforming challenges, while Among Us exploded onto Twitch, bringing major entertainers from across Twitch and YouTube together to suss out Impostors. On top of that, there was Phasmophobia.For much of the Halloween season and afterward, Phasmophobia was a Twitch star, offering a ghost hunting simulator that entertained and terrified players, streamers, and viewers everywhere. Much like other 2020 trends, Phasmophobia has fallen off in popularity, but it could pick back up again in 2021.
Phasmophobia is coming up on the Halloween season of 2021. Although there's plenty of horror games for YouTubers and Twitch streamers to entertain their audience during this spooky time of year, Phasmophobia's multiplayer aspect and unique premise give it good odds of making a comeback. Streamers might come together again to check on Phasmophobia and enjoy a new round of scares. What's more, Phasmophobia has grown a lot thanks to Kinetic Games' quiet but diligent work. There's so much new ghost hunting content to enjoy that Halloween 2021 could be defined by this indie horror game the same way as last year.
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Why Phasmophobia is Uniquely Suited for a Comeback
There's a lot of basic design principles in Phasmophobia that make it a fantastic game for streamers, which could contribute to a new bump in popularity this year. For one thing, it's a multiplayer horror game, which is a uncommon. The multiplayer is a great opportunity for Twitch streamers to come together, resulting in entertaining conversation and banter as players try to survive the ghost hunt. The sleuthing aspect of Phasmophobia is also great for streaming and interacting with viewers. If a Twitch streamer solicits help from their audience, then viewers get to impact the game, keeping an eye out for clues the streamer misses.
It also helps that Phasmophobia has changed a lot since the game was last popular. Kinetic Games has added a couple of maps to the game such as the Prison, offering different contexts in which Phasmophobia players grapple with the supernatural. Kinetic has also added new ghost types, adding more difficulty in identifying them. More importantly, ghost AI has changed drastically since last year; their senses, memory, and pathfinding are better, making them much bigger threats. Streamers who give Phasmophobia another try in September and October 2021 might be surprised by how much harder the game has gotten.
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Phasmophobia Deserves to be Celebrated Again
There's no guarantee that content creators will decide to delve back into Phasmophobia just because Halloween is getting close. There's plenty of other horror games out there that streamers could focus on. However, it's uniquely poised for a comeback right now. Phasmophobia's brand-new Exposition update overhauled tons of things, redesigning equipment and introducing a new type of ghost evidence for players to find. Exposition could be only the first in a series of dramatic updates rolling out over the next weeks or months, which could easily draw in Twitch streamers aside from those who've remained loyal to Phasmophobia.
Phasmophobia may not be at the height of its popularity right now, but between massive updates and the upcoming Halloween season, now is the perfect chance for a second wind. Twitch streamers should certainly consider taking another look at the game if they haven't been playing it regularly. It's amazing to see how much Kinetic Games has achieved with a very small team – as Phasmophobia fans know, the game rose to fame on the back of one man's efforts. With so much more ghost hunting content on the horizon, Halloween 2021 could become another season of Phasmophobia hype.
Phasmophobia is available now on PC.
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