I know. I can’t believe it, either. Phasmophobia’s long-teased, much-anticipated Player Character update is almost here. Cheerio, bendy backs. So long, limited rotation of slack, perma-stunned faces. From May 5, and for the first time ever, Phasmophobia players will be able to customize their ghosthunters in a “much-needed” update.
“They’ll match the new environments that we’ve been making — that’s a huge thing. There’ll be customization, so players will be able to pick what clothes they’re wearing,” Corey Dixon, art director at Kinetic Games, told IGN. “And there are some customizations for the characters themselves, like hair color, because they are people. They’re not soulless anymore. We’re not letting you change everything, but there are some options that should hopefully bring new life to games, because very often you’d see three of the same guy running around. Now, if you’re all playing as the same guy, your hair color can be different, your jackets, your T-shirts, your trousers, or whatever.
“There’s going to be all-new animations everywhere. So everything’s more immersive. You no longer just have this floating hand. You’re going to have a shadow! It’s all part of that immersive experience, isn’t it? It’s a big polish update, effectively, but there are some fun things that come with it, like new death animations. So we’ve replaced the classic Phas strangulation, [it] has been polished up and refreshed in line with the new animations. And then there’s a couple of extra things as well, which, you know, we want to leave a surprise for when players get there.”
Dixon said this forms part of “some much-needed love” to match the characters with “the other stuff we’ve been changing.” But that will mean the end of a Phasmophobia stable — the bendy backs.
“Sadly, we’re removing the bendy backs. It will be missed,” he laughed. (I did ask, but no, it seems there are no plans to keep them as a secret unlockable Easter egg for us. Dixon joked that we could see the formation of a new community of fans called The Cult of the Bendy Backs rise in defiance.) “[But we’re] adding some narrative to the characters. Before, they were nameless, just bodies. Now there’s actually a reason for them to be there, telling the players what, who they are.”
It’s those last few words that intrigue me most. Sure, it’ll be great to be able to customize our players with the greater variety of hairstyles, clothes, and accessories — all of which come with “reimagined” ghosthunters that boast new animations and movements — but it’s who these people are that I’m desperate to know more about. After all, we’ve spent the last six years with them, cowering in corners and jumping at shadows – it’s hardly surprising that we want to know more about them.
“Phasmophobia has really great groundwork for the world itself being really interesting to explore,” said Kinetic’s senior narrative designer Ana Dukakis. “And one of the first avenues that we looked at was the player characters. What kind of person ends up in that sort of job, you know? Why have they chosen to do that? That was the starting point. And, obviously, getting to work with the art team and seeing all the really cool redesigns and stuff that Corey was sharing… That also inspired loads of ideas for who these characters could be, how they got here. Players will get a little bit of a small window into who these people are and stuff, and why they’re here, and how they did that work.”
It’s here that Dukakis’ influence will be most noticeable, I suspect. The art team may be fleshing the characters out physically, but it’s Dukakis who’s working on that metaphorically.
“Phasmophobia has a really strong core loop,” she added. “Off the bat, it’s a fun game to play, and the atmosphere is already there. It’s super spooky. It’s eerie. And I felt like there’s already a sense in the game that there’s kind of more going on underneath the surface. As [Dixon] was saying, as maps and different things have been reworked, I think the team has already done really great work, organically building lore into those places. Thinking about, like, who lived in these places before? What kind of lives did they lead? It’s been really fun to be able to build on top of that.
“There are a lot of open questions that are opened by the design of the game. Who is this company, GHD? What is their goal? Exactly who are these people working for them? [It’s been fun] building around that to sort of enrich the game that already exists is, yes, it’s just a really fun challenge.”
All cosmetics will be unlocked through gameplay challenges or purchased via the new in-game store with in-game currency. We saw the embryonic system during the recent Cursed Hollow event, as players who stopped by to complete its limited-time missions unlocked access to a new necklace, t-shirt, and the Forest Spirit Mask, giving us our first peek at what kind of cosmetics will be available.
Interestingly, though, there are no microtransactions or premium cosmetics. I’ll admit that that surprises me; Phasmophobia released into early access in 2020, and while it’s not free to download, the game’s mechanics, locations, ghosts, and ghost-hunting equipment have all been expanded and improved over the years without additional cost. But I’m told “the game’s still selling really well,” which is perhaps why there’s currently no desire to lock cosmetics behind paywalls.
“One day, there might be a situation where it’s something we might look into doing, but at the moment, there’s no reason to,” Dixon said. “As gamers ourselves, we players like earning stuff, so why not just let players earn as much as possible? Some [cosmetics] will be available straight away. Some stuff will be locked behind our leveling and prestige system, and then some stuff’s locked behind in-game money. So you can just spend your in-game cash on something else [other than equipment], because Phas has never really had a money sink, I guess. But now there is another thing that players can kind of save up for and unlock, which is cool.”
This is also why new maps — both original and reworked — haven’t been locked away behind paywalls, either. Dixon said feedback to the latest updated map, Tanglewood, has been “really positive,” but admitted reworking that fan-favorite map was “the scariest one” yet. “It’s been really good to see people starting to trust the process now and trust us as a team,” he explained. “We love the game as much as they do. We’re not gonna completely change it, we just want it to feel like [reworked/new maps like] Bleasedale [Farmhouse] and Grafton [Farmhouse] and the Diner and just, you know, bring it up to the same standard as everything else.
“It’s kind of the poster child for Phas,” he continued. “It was the cover art on Steam since day one. So, obviously, when we reworked it, we knew that players were either gonna love it or hate it. There wasn’t going to be an in-between. I think the only negatives we really saw were around what we showed early, because we only showed the big changes, and we didn’t show anything staying the same. I think that scared a lot of players, but then it almost benefited us when the update came out, and they were like, ‘Oh God, it’s actually the same, it’s just two or three things that are different, but it’s better.’ We’ve been over the moon with the feedback, and we all love it as a team.”
And yes, there’ll be more “narrative stuff” coming with the eagerly-awaited 1.0 update, with the player update “slowly laying a bit of the background” behind the lore being retconned into the ghost-hunting sim.
“We don’t want to spoon-feed the story to people, but for the eagle-eyed players, [they can] start piecing together a little bit more about GHD as a company, and what, maybe, they’re working towards,” Dukakis teased. “I think there’ll be some fun theories coming out of that stuff, which I’m looking forward to. I think 1.0 there’s going to be loads of really cool stuff, and for the lore side of things, there’ll be a lot of nice updates there, too, that will build on what we’ve got here in the player character [update].
“We really want to be mindful not to overshadow the main focus of the course of the game, which is hunting and the experience of playing that with your friends or other people, being immersed in that spooky environment. We didn’t want the backstory to overshadow that, but we wanted to drip feed it over time, so that players who are interested can look for it. The details that are there for people that want to dig deeper, but it doesn’t encroach on the gameplay in any way.”
And it goes even further than that, too. Why is it, exactly, that it’s these locations that are haunted? What brings them together? Dukakis teased that there’s been “a lot of thinking” about that. Expect more subtle details as things come out “gradually over time.”
As for what’s next for the Phasmophobia team? Kinetic has hinted there’s more to come, including the new death, revival, and EMF reader animations that were previously teased in Phasmophobia’s 2026 roadmap, There’s also an Unity Engine update on the cards, which’ll bring “loads of performance stuff, visuals, and some networking things.” The big one, though, is the 1.0 update, which is when the game finally exits early access.
“[That’s] the one that all the players — and us! — have been waiting for forever,” Dixon laughed.
Phasmophobia’s Player Character Update rolls out from May 5 across all platforms (PC, PS5, PS VR2, and Xbox Series X/S).
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
