Phasmophobia is a game all about embracing your inner Travel Channel star, hunting down ghosts, and screaming “Did you hear that!?” repeatedly. While this game is full of tense moments, one of the scariest aspects is you can lose a lot of the gear you’ve brought. Thankfully, you can mitigate some of your losses if you are a newer player or just playing on lower difficulty settings. Managing your gear is critical in Phasmophobia, so understanding how item loss works will make your life much easier. Well, as easy as a game about scythe-wielding psychotic ghosts can be.
How You Lose Items
When it comes to losing items, you will only have those items taken away from you if you die. This means if a ghost starts hunting and kills you, all of the items you brought will be lost. That being said, Phasmophobia will always include essential gear for ghost hunting, regardless if you have zero or a thousand dollars. These items include the EMF Reader, flashlight, photo camera, video camera, spirit box, and ghost writing book. Unless you’re playing with a group, you have no reason to purchase additional ones with the exception of the photo and video cameras. Everything else can be lost if you die, so make sure to not just bring everything you own unless you’re confident in your skills.
More Phasmophobia:
- Phasmophobia Demon Guide – Tips for Hunting & Identifying a Demon
- Phasmophobia Jinn Guide – Tips for Hunting & Identifying a Jinn
Additionally, any items you leave during an investigation will be returned to you for no additional charge. It doesn’t matter where you put that gear or if you even finish the investigation. So long as you don’t die, those items will not lose those items. That being said, if you do die there is an intrinsic insurance mechanic that will refund you a percentage of the money spent on that gear. How much you get back will entirely depend on what difficulty you are playing on. So if you embark on Professional level missions, make sure to be cautious and only bring what you need. You can find the return percentages below:
- Amateur – 50%
- Intermediate – 25%
- Professional – 0%
Keep in mind, whatever gear you brought can still be used by your teammates during that mission. It will only go away when the investigation ends. If you’re playing with a group, I strongly recommend you try to evenly divide what you’re bringing. Unless you plan to chill in the truck the entire time, there’s almost no reason to have a single person fund all your gear. This will make death less painful, ensuring that you aren’t losing too much if you die. You should always consider what to bring once the map has been chosen. For example, in a smaller home, I may not want to load up on video cameras, parabolic microphones, or head cameras. These are expensive and far more useful in the bigger maps.
