Phasmophobia's prison map is here and I've already been spooked
Who turned off the lights in here?
The prison map that ghost hunting game Phasmophobia's been cooking up is out today in a new game update. That there's a picture I personally took while exploring it for the first time, a commitment I hope you can appreciate as I do not hunt ghosts solo. Here's a few other observations about the new prison map from yours truly before you go try it for yourself.
As far as photos go, immediately after I snapped this one all of the lights in this cell block shut off around me. Obviously I immediately quit the game after that, so this is the best picture you're going to get out of me until you go try it out yourself. I'm sure you understand.
I did notice while creeping around the new map that it was difficult to locate the lights—intentionally, I'm sure. A couple of rooms like the showers and staff rooms did have obvious switches. In this cell block though, I found the light controls on a series of computer monitors in a secondary room on the bottom level. It's a big room with its own set of stairs, so getting the lights back on in a tense moment is going to be quite a challenge, I imagine.
The good news is that it's a Friday night so I'm hopeful that I can drag my usual phasmo pals out to the prison to learn its ins and outs over the weekend. We'll be pros again in no time, I'm sure.
As usual, the official update notes for Phasmophobia are brief, listing a handful of bug fixes. As a balance change, players will no longer collide with cabinet doors to prevent an exploit. Information on the prison level pretty much starts and end with its existence, so we'll have to explore on our own. The developer does say that the prison level will be a guaranteed option during contract selection for the next few updates so you'll be able to tackle it as often as you like.
As for upcoming changes, it looks like a couple convenience updates are in the works. The public Trello board for tracking Phasmophobia's progress through early access lists a couple choice items "in progress". Kinetic Games are apparently cooking up a difficulty selector so that you can choose your spook level separate from the map you pick. They're also creating a singleplayer mode so that you can play solo without having to connect to a server to create an empty game lobby. Not that I'll ever get any use out of that. Solo hunting is just too spooky. Further in the future, the Trello board mentions eventual plans for other new maps, namely a mansion and an apartment building.
Phasmophobia launched in early access in September. It was intended to fully release sometime in 2021, but the game's explosion in popularity in October may have altered plans. Despite its somewhat rough aesthetic an animations, it's quite a good time with pals already, in my experience.