Kinetic Games’ Phasmophobia is a success story that we’ve only seen mirrored in a handful of other cases. It was one of those amazing projects that went into early access, and then quickly saw millions of players come to watch, ultimately seeing an incredibly small studio succeed unique. Phasmophobia has been in Early Access on PC since 2020 with no end in sight, but a console version of the game is coming soon, which takes advantage of the Early Access system on Xbox and PlayStation . I had a chance to check out that version of the supernatural psychological horror game, and while it clearly had big intentions, it really tested how we interpret it. “Early Access”limits.
If you’re a console gamer who’s been watching PCs enjoy and enjoy Phasmophobia for years, and been waiting for your chance to join them, the good news you can now. There is full cross-play support, and most of the features of the PC version can be seen in this console version. The problem is, they are made in a way that does not make the controller comfortable.
For starters, one of the biggest bans of control owners is common here. I’m talking about using the cursor menu. Basically, these work so you can’t knock them, but they’re so confusing and frustrating to use with analog sticks that they really need some solid game design behind them to make sure they work. give up. The problem is, before we get that far, we also have to deal with poor menu design. Phasmophobia on a console doesn’t feel good by default, players have been struggling to get the main menu and interaction systems to work as they should, even though there are a lot of cursor mechanics that should h -honestly make these parts precise and without any reason. it’s weird. But they do, and if you have the patience to keep pushing forward, we’ll get to the next part of the question.
Now you might say that the main problem with Phasmophobia on console is that it still feels like it was designed for mouse and keyboard only. The menu and cursor system is a great early warning presence and you don’t need DOTS or a camera to record. This design goes through the game, every time it feels like you are fighting the controls to make basic moves work, which are smoothly executed on the M&K. Whether it’s the difficulty of opening doors, struggling to place items, or even accidentally dropping items, losing them through the cracks in the map, and then struggling to cross- record it in detail in an effort to build it. In addition, there is poor feedback about how control users can detect when interacting with objects, and the buttons and game systems are incompatible with the version PC (includes Spirit Box contact mechanics).
Here’s a hint:
When it comes to early access, I can forgive the limited graphical work and a few lags here and there, but as it stands, Phasmophobia is a worse nightmare on consoles than it could be the devil to hope. This game needs more time in the oven on the console, time spent refining the core elements and making them smooth and irresistible. The menus and interactions are clunky, but they’re a small part of the problem compared to how difficult and painful the core control mechanics are. I appreciate Kinetic taking the time and effort to create a PC/console project with full parity and cross-play, but for now, I wouldn’t encourage console gamers to join their PC brethren in this psychological horror game again. At least not yet.
