It’s the same scare I’ve witnessed hundreds of times before. I stumble through the dark, bravely wandering away from my friends and peering into unending darkness. There’s nothing there, and I realize I won’t be the lucky one to discover whatever is lurking in this abandoned suburban home. As I turn to leave, two friends behind me begin screaming - I didn’t see or hear anything myself, but now I’m panicking, too. In seconds I’m screaming myself, knocking things off my desk from frantic mouse motions, and yelling into my microphone for someone to open the door to this house and let me the hell out. In all of my years of playing horror games, this is the best experience I’ve ever had. There is nothing that replicates a thrill quite like something co-op.
The scene I described is one of my adventures into Phasmophobia: a four-player, first-person horror game from developer Kinetic Games. I discovered it last year with some of my friends and watched it become an overnight Twitch sensation. My horror favorites are still games like Fatal Frame, Haunting Ground, and Silent Hill 2, but those are completely different beasts. After this past year, I’m convinced that this is a genre that’s best when it’s co-op, even if that may seem like the antithesis of what horror is or should be.
Phasmophobia instilled the idea in me. I spent countless hours exploring the same haunted halls in generic schools, jails, homes, and hospitals. Nothing really changed about the formula, but clumsily crawling with three friends in the dark somehow made it more terrifying. For a moment, I’d be okay, and the bravest of my friend group would lead the way. As he would help coordinate on where to go, we’d encounter moments that would send me into a fit of screams, but he’d stay calm. It wasn’t until one of us would freak out first that he would get surprised, and then he’d go running too.
Frights work that way, though. If I hear a friend screaming, I immediately join in - mixed with fits of nervous laughter. A group panicking makes everything more chaotic, less clear about what or where that demon is, and suddenly you scatter. After Phasmophobia’s influence, I found myself constantly looking for more of these games, finally settling upon a new one on Steam, Ghost Hunter Corp, from GameFabrique.
The game is undeniably quite Phasmophobia-like in countless ways, but it sported enough difference that I quickly installed it with my usual ghostbusting group. The ghosts and demons in this one are far more aggressive, which encouraged a game of chicken amongst my group. Someone would run forward, then back, hightailing it back to the car as fast as possible over the softest sounds.
We played for hours, and I couldn’t help but wonder why. Ghost Hunter Corp is an imperfect Phas - it’s far buggier, and doesn’t explain itself as well. Some of its glitches and hiccups grated my nerves, but I didn’t really care. It’s a new haunted adventure I can drag my friends along on, and I’m far more forgiving of any avenue that provides it. These games don’t feel as complex as some of my solo horror adventures, but their thrills and scares have kept me entertained more than most games have in the last year or two.
Perhaps I’ll eventually grow tired of tracking down every multiplayer, ghost-hunting adventure I can, but for now, I’m happy here - terrified, whatever. I’ve got another two I plan on trying soon - Bigfoot and Haunt Chaser - and I’m hoping they’re just as ridiculous as they sound. All we need is one friend to scream, and then it’s all downhill from there.