Kinetic Games has released a freshly updated development roadmap for their critically-acclaimed horror title, Phasmophobia, which represents what the studio plans to do moving forward. According to the latest Steam post, an upcoming Phasmophobia update will add a custom difficulty feature later this month.
"We want to be transparent and realistic in our plans to make sure we don't have to delay things in the future or force mini updates to fill gaps. Development doesn't always go exactly to plan, so in this new roadmap, we're allowing a bit of extra room for things going wrong. If things go well, that just means we can be ahead of schedule and push updates earlier" the developers reiterate their future plans for Phasmophobia.
As for the custom difficulty feature, Kinetic Games assured that this update will be a major one, providing numerous custom options such as ghost interaction rate, sanity pill effectiveness, hunt duration, and the ability to disable flashlights. All further details and a set release date for the new update will be revealed in a new trailer, which the developers state is coming "very soon".
Alongside the custom difficulty feature, the updated roadmap for 2022 brings a URP upgrade, including several improvements like volumetric lighting and weather effects overhaul, and will be available in Q4 of 2022. Additionally, the progression update, which will be divided into two halves, is the most intriguing section of the roadmap. Kinetic Games is planning to add the largest programming and art overhaul to Phasmophobia next year.
"Hopefully, by us splitting this into several smaller updates, this allows you to experience new things slowly over time, instead of having to wait six or more months for one massive patch." Kinetic clarified why they will bring gradually the progression update to the beloved horror game.
Going into more detail, the initial part of Phamophobia's progression update adds a new render pipeline, upgradable equipment, player models and animations, customization options, and leveling system. The second part of the update features new locations, optional objectives, and daily/weekly challenges. In order to make your investigation experience even more challenging, Kinetic Games has also assured players that they will replace all of the ghost models with new effects and sounds.