How to Raise Sanity in Phasmophobia

Most of the ghosts in Phasmophobiaare not the friendly, Casper-like specters players grew up with. Instead, these paranormal entities will hunt down and kill the team to prevent them from discovering its identity and passing along information to people who could exorcise it from the home or building. When a player dies in Phasmophobia, they lose all the equipment they were carrying, and they won’t earn as much money or XP as they could have for that match. In addition to the fear of being hunted and killed, player characters can also lose their sanity, the game’s equivalent of health, because they’ll be easier for the ghost to pick off.

The sanity mechanic in the game is tricky, because the lower it goes, the more likely the player character is to begin hallucinating things that aren’t there, like ghost decoys, flickering lights, or whispers. This draws the ghost to the player character and makes it easy for the ghost to kill them. Sanity will drop automatically during a game but is lowered more quickly by things like spending too much time in the dark, seeing events, being in the ghost room, using communication items like the Ouija Board and voodoo doll, and seeing the ghost. Staying in the light or returning to the truck won’t help a player regain their sanity, but it will slow the gradual loss of sanity. There is only one way to regain sanity in Phasmophobia, though it will never return the player to 100%.

How to Raise Sanity in Phasmophobia

The larger and more difficult the map, the more quickly players will lose sanity. On larger, Intermediate-difficulty maps, player characters lose sanity 50% more quickly while in the building, and on the largest, Professional-difficulty maps, player characters lose their sanity 100% more quickly. On these maps, strategizing and regaining sanity before it gets too low are both extremely important.

Players monitor their sanity in the truck parked outside the building. They should keep an eye on both their own character’s sanity and the average collective sanity of the group, as lowered sanity draws the ghost to the players more frequently and makes the ghost more dangerous.

Returning to the truck can also slow the speed at which sanity decreases. As a strategy on larger maps, players can cycle through the building one or two at a time to make sure no one runs too low on sanity.

While this method helps preserve sanity, there is only one way in the game to actually raise sanity. This is through the use of Sanity Pills, an item players can purchase with money from their hunts. They can add up to four pills to the team’s inventory. This will be especially important for Intermediate- and Professional-level maps but can be useful for every match.

Each Sanity Pill restores 40% of a player’s character’s sanity. As with all other items in the game, to take one of the Pills, players simply need to pick one up, equip it, then right-click to take it. This should buy the players more time to identify the ghost and get out before it begins a hunt.

Phasmophobiais available for PC.

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