The Phasmophobia Ascension update is the one you’ve been waiting for. Phasmophobia update 0.9 is a comprehensive overhaul to the co-op horror game. With the genre dramatically bulking out in recent years and the likes of Demonologist, Devour, Pacify, Labyrinthine, The Outlast Trials, The Blackout Club, and more all making waves in the space, the sudden appearance of this huge set of Phasmophobia patch changes is a surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.
Phasmophobia patch notes 0.9.0.0 give the game its biggest overhaul in a long while. Officially called Phasmophobia Ascension, this massive update includes an all new progression system, introduces equipment upgrades for every item in the game, overhauls the game’s tutorial, and moves the whole experience to a new branch of the Unity engine for improved overall performance in game.
The reworked progression system includes plenty of new unlocks to obtain, and there’s a prestige system to reset your level for additional, well, prestige. If you’ve already played previously you’ll be reset to prestige 1, level 1, while incoming new players will start at prestige 0, level 1. Rewards have also been “drastically” increased across the board for all objectives, tasks, and the weekly challenge.
Equipment can now be upgraded across three tiers. These improvements are expensive to unlock, but once you have them each subsequent tier costs the same to bring into a contract. Certain equipment types have been renamed to account for the broader tiers that this will result in – the Matchbox and Lighters now fall under ‘Igniter’ while Smudge Sticks and the Censer are part of the ‘Incense’ category.
Several pieces of equipment and evidence have been rebalanced or reworked. DOTS has had some particular attention – rather than duplicate clones of the cost appearing on the DOTS projector, you’ll now see ghosts that use it temporarily appear in a state where they can be seen briefly with infrared light, walking towards the nearest player (or their target in the case of Banshees).
A new training mission in a custom-built warehouse should better teach you how to effectively make use of each of the item types, and give some general hints on how the game is best played. The in-game voice system has been replaced with the Photon voice tool, which should improve the quality and reduce any voice chat latency. You can read the full details for the massive Phasmophobia update below.
Phasmophobia patch notes – Ascension update 0.9.0.0 – Thursday August 17, 2023
Here are the patch notes for the Phasmophobia Ascension update:
Progression
- A new levelling system has been added, with new rates of progression, new unlocks, and a prestige system.
- For this system to function, all current players have been reset to Prestige 1, level 1, this way you can continue to play with your unlocked difficulties and locations. New players will start at Prestige 0, level 1.
- Warning: Players now found editing their level will be banned.
- Upon launching the game for the first time after updating, you will be presented with a new screen to choose a unique badge with options based on your pre-update level. Once saved, this is un-editable so choose carefully!
Equipment
Upgrades
- Each equipment item now has 3 tiers, increasing our Equipment count from 22 to 60! Tiers cost a large sum of money to unlock, but each tier will cost the same to bring into a contract.
- To upgrade a piece of equipment, reach the required level, go to the shop and press on any item’s UI tile on the screen, then hit upgrade!
Renaming
- Several names have been replaced to accommodate changes or for the new upgrade tiers, so that the word covers a broader spectrum:
- Fingerprints (evidence) -> Ultraviolet
- Footsteps (photos and descriptions) -> Footprints
- Candles and Lantern -> Firelight
- Matchbox and Lighters -> Igniter
- Smudge Sticks and Censer -> Incense
- Camcorders and Movie Camera -> Video Camera
- Glowsticks and UV torches -> UV Light
- Sanity Drink, Pills and Shot -> Sanity Medication
- Head Mounted Camera, Flashlight and Goggles -> Head Gear
- Weak or Strong flashlights -> Flashlight
D.O.T.S.
- We felt that DOTS wasn’t a very interactive evidence type, so we’ve completely refactored it from the ground up. Instead of being a clone of the ghost that gets spawned in and revealed with DOTS, the following will happen:
- You will no longer get duplicate DOTS ghosts, or DOTS triggering during events, hunts or other interactions.
- Ghosts with DOTS evidence can now enter a short “DOTS state”; where they are temporarily visible with infrared light, during this time they will wander towards the nearest player before disappearing (if the player is in the same room).
- DOTS Ghost photos now count as normal ghost photos.
- Note: Banshees will try to roam towards their target instead.
Firelights and Igniters
- You can now turn off Firelights by pressing the Use button again while holding it.
- Firelights now have a duration for their effects, and no longer stop the sanity drain completely, with different amounts of sanity benefits per tier.
Parabolic Microphone
- When using a Parabolic microphone, you will now clearly hear all sounds you are aiming towards, within range, while all other sounds will be muffled.
Incense
- The interval in which the ghost checks if an Incense is active, is now much smaller, making repelling the ghost much more consistent.
- Using Incense during another Incense’s effect will now reset the timer instead of doing nothing.
Salt and Ultraviolet
- Salt will now only reveal footprints if the ghost has Ultraviolet evidence.
- UV prints must now be charged by a UV light to take a successful photo.
- Footprints will be affected by ghost traits similar to Fingerprints.
- Glowsticks can now be used again after they dim to shake and revitalize the light they produce.
Thermometers and Temperatures
- Thermometers are now counted as a starter item alongside the other evidence items.
- The cold breath effect will now show at 5 degrees Celsius and below.
- You must now use a Thermometer to find freezing temperatures at 0 Celsius (32 Fahrenheit) or below.
- To receive a room temperature reading you must now hold the “Use” button for a short period (Tiers II and III only).
- Room temperatures will now be much more consistent between players.
- Freezing ghosts can lower the temperature to -10C, non-freezing ghosts can lower to 1C.
- Temperatures will now drop at 1/3 the current speed, if the temperature is below the minimum weather temperature.
Tripods and Video Cameras
- Max amount reduced to 4.
- Ghosts can now throw video cameras like other items.
- Ghosts can now rarely knock over tripods.
Consumables
- Some items are now consumable! This means that if you use an item during a contract, marked as “consumable” in the shop, you will have to purchase it again when you leave.
- Disabling “lose items” in Custom Difficulty will not consume items (rewards are still set to 0x).
- Items that are now consumable:
- Crucifix: All tiers
- Firelight I and II
- Igniter: All tiers
- Incense I and II
- Salt: All tiers
- Sanity Medication: All tiers
Photo System
- Added a new photo camera system which takes into consideration the distance and view angle of the evidence. This will significantly change the quality of photos.
- Evidence in photos will now need to be closer and centralized to get a higher quality reward.
Reward Changes
- Several rewards have had their values adjusted to feel more rewarding and encourage the completion of objectives.
- Rewards for all objectives, tasks and the weekly challenge have been increased drastically.
- Any experience earned will now give you the same amount in dollars.
- Rewards for collecting the bone will no longer be affected by the reward multiplier.
Training
- The Training mission has been replaced with a brand-new experience, to access it press the training button on the main menu.
- This version of Training is set in a custom-built warehouse, with different rooms to show the player how to use each item of Evidence equipment, as well as give tips and tricks on how to play the game in a controlled environment.
Gamepad
- Added gamepad UI button controls for the Journal, voice recognition text and the main menu screen.
- Replaced gamepad UI navigation with a virtual on-screen cursor.
Blocking players
- You can now block other players. Blocking another player will keep them permanently muted until you unblock them.
- To block or unblock a player, press the block button on either their player card or on the recent players page. You can also unblock players by going to the ‘Blocked Players’ tab in the ‘Pause Menu’.
New Additions
- Upgraded the Unity engine for many performance improvements.
- Swapped from the Forward to Forward+ renderer. With this, turning on multiple lights should no longer reduce your performance drastically.
- Added a help (?) button above the equipment list to explain the new icons to the player.
- Clicking on any Equipment panel in the SHOP or LOADOUT pages will now open a new window displaying new information and buttons for Upgrading.
- A small Tier button has been added to the top left of each equipment item in the Shop, which you can click to quickly cycle through unlocked Upgrades.
- New gameplay Descriptions and Lore notes have been added to all equipment, viewable on the Upgrade screen.
- You can now set a loadout to Auto-Buy! This will refill any missing items when finishing a mission, but only you have the money to buy all the missing items.
- Added range indicators while placing to all Ghost-Writing Books and Motion Sensor III.
- Added platform-specific icons to the player cards and recent player’s page.
- Player voices will now be affected by audio effects such as the Sunny Meadows hallway reverb.
- Added gamepad UI button controls for the Journal, voice recognition text and the main menu screen.
- Added a fade to the VR head collision.
- When the game loads into a map or the main menu it will now always be a smooth fade for VR and NonVR.
- The ghost will now leave EMF when blowing out a candle.
- Several equipment items can now be turned on and off by pressing use when aiming at them while they are placed.
- Added support for the Quest Pro.
- Added support for the Vive Focus 3.
Changes and Balancing
- The in-game voice system has been replaced with Photon Voice.
- Replaced and added several new sounds for equipment.
- Moved the camera view for the Head Mounted Camera so that it’s slightly easier to watch other player’s view.
- Crucifixes will now have an extra 50% range (per Tier) against Demons.
- Incense will now have an extra 50% duration (per Tier) against Moroi.
- Rebaked lighting in all locations, main menu and training.
- Increased the height of the Equipment List panel in the lobby.
- Increased the penalty for choosing a Monkey Paw in Custom games.
- “I wish to see the ghost” will no longer teleport the ghost in front of you, instead it will reveal it where the ghost is, in its current position.
- Turning off “Flashlights” in Custom difficulty will now turn off all types of flashlights (DOTS I, UV II etc).
- Updated all equipment loadouts for Weekly Challenges to accommodate Tiers, some are harder some are easier!
- Reduced the chance for a ghost to interact with a door as it was overpowering other interactions.
- Moved the Tarot Cards in the Collection cabinet so you can see them all at once on all aspect ratios.
- Candles found inside contracts can still be lit, but are no longer grabbable and do not provide any sanity-altering effects.
- The “Take a Ghost photo” objective will no longer count if you take a ghost photo when your journal is already full.
- Light range has been reduced and will no longer cast shadows to save performance.
- Improved the performance of the fountain in Sunny Meadows.
- Removed distortion for VR Parabolic microphone glass.
- Improved support for new HTC VR headsets.
- Replaced Turkish font to make it more readable.
- VR Smooth Monitor View has been renamed to Social Screen Mode.
- Several candles in the Sunny Meadows chapel have been adjusted.
- Light range has been reduced and will no longer cast shadows to save performance.
- The fallen Candelabras will now start off, and cannot be re-lit
Additional bug fixes and known issues can be found on the Phasmophobia Steam page.
Still looking for more? Thrill yourself and your friends with more of the best co-op games, or take a moment to calm down from the chills and spills of Phasmo with our picks of the coziest and most relaxing games on PC.