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Breakout ghost hunting game Phasmophobia has been so successful that the developer says it will re-evaluate its original early beta program and spend more time fixing bugs and new content before releasing a full version.
Kinetic Games is made up of a single developer, Dknighter, who created the game as a debut solo project, with no formal development training. The game's early beta program is actually quite simple. In an exclusive email interview with IGN, he revealed, "I initially just wanted to keep the Early Access phase a little shorter and add a few maps, new ghosts and equipment. But because of the game's sudden popularity and everyone's expectations getting higher, I had to rethink my future plans for the game.”
Dknighter doesn’t go into detail about the details of the new plans, but it seems the game will remain in Early Access for longer than planned, and may well be more ambitious in the additions it makes. For now, however, the developer's focusing on existing features, rather than new ones.
“My only focus right now is to get the major bugs fixed before I begin on making new content. Bug fixes are usually released when they're done, but since I still have a lot of the game’s code, a lot of new systems need testing, so the next update will be a big stability and bug fix update. Once these bugs are fixed, the new content will likely get bundled together for another major update. All the updates can be played on the beta version of the game, which will be available for everyone to play through Steam.”
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We've seen development progress on the game's patch last week, with dozens of bugs fixed or changes made, and even some new content for Halloween. As for what’s next, a glance at the game’s public development Trello board shows you how many features Dknighter is thinking of for the future, but one element is very unlikely to be added into the game. The PvP mode that allowed players to control ghosts, which was previously mentioned on the announcement board, is no longer featured on there.
"The second PvP mode was added to the Trello to see how people would react to it. Right now, I have no plans to add another game mode, as it would push the game in a completely different direction from what I want it to be. I want the game to remain 4 players vs. 1 AI, and balance the game, then add new features to this type of gameplay," the developer explained.
The idea is to make Phasmophobia better than it already is, with more potential scary content and ways to catalogue these ghosts. Most importantly, to make more of this game that millions have taken to over the past few months. I asked Dknighter if he expected this game to be this popular so early on. He replied, "Not at all. My original plan was to have a server capacity of 500 players on launch day, and it is to drop off from there, and I was only aiming to make enough money to keep making more games. Now the game has over 2 million sales, with up to 90,000 people online at the same time.” If you want to know how popular the game is now, the number of concurrent players online has since risen to over 110,000.
How does Dknighter view his success, given that his first game has been met with an outpouring of praise? Is it because of the COVID-19 lockdown, or is it because gamers are becoming more open-minded to indie games? “I think everyone likes multiplayer games because you can play with your friends rather than against other players, whether the game comes from a well-known development team or not," he said. With the game's popularity and the changes that players have forced Kinetic Games to make, this theory is being tested again.
