I thought I’d seen and heard it all when it comes to Phasmophobia ghost identification. Nearly a year after the horror game released, countless investigations into the unknown ingrained nearly everything there was to know about ghost behavior – or so I thought. My mental journal automatically crossed off possible candidates after clocking even a fleeting glimpse of a ghost orb, and I developed a (usually) accurate sense of when a ghost seemed more aggressive than others.
So one night, when I heard something new out of the spirit box, it pulled me up short. This sound wasn’t your usual “behind you” or the other common utterances of the restless dead. It wasn’t even an utterance at all, not technically. I heard a heavy breath coming from the spirit box, the sound of someone standing far too close and squeezing every possible drop of discomfort out of their unwanted proximity.
It creeped me out, and I don’t scare easily in Phasmophobia, if at all. But I wrote it off as a surprising interaction that I just happened to never hear before or, more cynically, the well-timed breath of a teammate trying to troll everyone else. The investigation continued, we solved the mystery, and I thought nothing of it.
Then I saw a Reddit post from OctoberWish that asked whether anyone else had encountered the breathing before, and it turns out that breathing noises emerging from the spirit box are unique to just two ghosts: the Deogen and the Mimic.
The discovery impressed me. It adds a spine-tingling new facet to using the spirit box, true, but more interesting still is the question it raised of whether this was a genuine phenomenon in the game.. Maybe this interaction is the only one of its kind, or perhaps Kinetic Games slyly included multiple alternate interactions under each category that only happen with very specific ghosts.
Whatever the answer, it points to a phenomenon beyond what the ghosts manage to pull out of their proverbial hats. Even after all the time I’ve spent playing Phasmophobia already, I’m keen to dive back in and find out what more they have to show me.
If you’re after some more scares yourself, check out our recommendations for the best zombie games and, if you really want to up the ante, the best VR horror games you absolutely must play.