Phasmophobia Beginner Guide and First Contract Walkthrough#

Before Your First Contract: What to Get Straight in Your Head#

Your first contract in Phasmophobia scares off a fair share of new players, and the reason usually isn’t the ghost — it’s that beginners don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing, standing in the living room clutching a thermometer until Sanity hits zero and the Hunt begins. So this page starts with a complete mental framework: a contract boils down to exactly three things — find which room the ghost is in, measure out three pieces of evidence, and get back to the truck alive. Every other action is just a sub-step of those three.

New players start on Amateur difficulty by default. On this setting every ghost hands over all three of its evidence types, Sanity drains slowly, and Hunts come late — you can absolutely fill the journal with equipment readings and lock in the answer by checking the chart. Reading ghost behavior and outplaying Hunts are skills for your twentieth contract, not your first.

What Equipment to Bring#

The loadout available at the starting level fits Amateur difficulty perfectly. Recommended carry for your first contract:

This setup covers five or more of the seven evidence sources (the Ghost Orb needs the video camera, Ghost Writing needs the book, Fingerprints need the UV light, Freezing Temperatures need the thermometer, and EMF Level 5 needs the reader), and it works for solo and group play alike. Packing duplicates is pointless — there is only one ghost room, and whoever finds it places the equipment.

Full First-Contract Flow: From the Truck to the Results Screen#

Walk your first contract in the order below; every step has a clear decision point:

Step 1: Prepare in the Truck#

1. Read the contract info: location, difficulty, and objectives (optional, but they pay extra).
2. Pick up the equipment listed above from the shelves. Each item’s name and tier is shown on screen.
3. Glance at the map layout preview and note roughly how the rooms are arranged — no need to memorize it; one lap inside and you’ll know your way around.
4. Wait for all teammates to board (solo players can start right away).

Step 2: Get Inside and Power Up#

1. After entering, look for the Fuse Box first. It’s a physical switch you can flip, its location isn’t fixed, and on small maps it’s usually in the garage, basement, or a storage room. Flip it on and the whole building gets power: lights become controllable and electronics run without draining their own batteries.
2. Keep the power on, but turn off the lights in the hallway and any room the ghost might occupy — ghosts interact more in the dark, and some evidence (the Ghost Orb) is only visible in a dark room.
3. Open the building’s breaker panel to confirm each room’s power status, and only use the lights you actually need.

Step 3: Find the Ghost Room#

Sweep room by room with the Thermometer while following the ghost’s activity on the EMF Reader. What to look for:

• Temperature: normal rooms sit somewhere in the teens (°C), and the ghost room’s reading keeps sinking. Below zero means the Freezing Temperatures evidence (it only counts under 0°C — the fog of a player’s breath doesn’t count).
• EMF readings: items the ghost has touched leave a reading nearby. Level 2 and 3 readings mean ordinary interactions; if you keep picking up readings in the same room, it’s most likely the ghost room.
• Anomalous behavior: doors opening on their own, objects being thrown, lights smacked off — the ghost’s interactions always happen where it lurks.

Once you’ve found the ghost room, place the Writing Book on the floor at the center of the room, set up the video camera aimed at it, then pull back to a safe distance and observe.

Step 4: Gather Evidence#

Each of the seven evidence types has its own test; for the first contract you only need the three most basic moves:

1. Watch the camera: back at the truck’s monitor, switch the video camera to night vision and watch the feed for the Ghost Orb — a small white dot that drifts slowly and flickers. It almost never leaves the ghost room.
2. Ask the Spirit Box: in the ghost room, lights off and alone (or after confirming your difficulty allows it), hold the talk key and ask questions like “Are you here?”. A response means the Spirit Box evidence counts.
3. Check with UV: after the ghost touches a door, light switch, or keyboard, shine the ultraviolet light on those surfaces — glowing handprints confirm the Fingerprints evidence.

Tick off each piece of evidence in the journal as you confirm it (from the truck or directly through the journal panel). Once two or more are logged, the list of candidate ghosts narrows sharply.

Step 5: Evacuate#

All three evidence types collected → back at the truck, select the ghost type in the journal → all players return to the truck → end the contract on the board. The results screen lists your evidence, photos, and objective completion.

Bailing out halfway is fine too: any time you’re back at the truck you can end the contract immediately — no need to grind until the evidence is complete. Keep this fallback rule in mind and the fear factor of your first contract drops a lot.

When the Hunt Starts: Three Beginner Survival Moves#

Hunts aren’t frequent on Amateur difficulty, but almost everyone freezes the first time one hits. Remember three moves:

1. Flashlight off, mouth shut, stop moving. Sound and light both expose you during a Hunt, and electronics flicker with interference as the ghost closes in — when your flashlight starts strobing, don’t panic; switch it off first.
2. Hide in a proper hiding spot: closets, lockers, or the hiding areas marked on the map. Note that only these count as “proper hiding spots” — crouching behind furniture does not (a few ghosts’ detection actually uses this definition).
3. Get away from the ghost room. Hunts usually start near the ghost room, and hiding right next to it is far less survivable than running to the end of the hallway first.

Hunts have a time limit; outlast it and you’re safe. The smaller the map, the shorter the Hunt — on small maps, hunt duration has three settings, 15 seconds at the shortest and 30 seconds at the longest.

A Practice Route for Your First Three Hours#

Here’s a rhythm you can actually follow, far more efficient than playing blind:

Stay on small maps for the entire first three hours. Small maps have fewer rooms, shorter Hunts, and shorter equipment hauls, which makes them the ideal training ground; for specific map picks see the small maps guide.

The Five Mistakes New Players Make Most#

1. Testing before turning on the power. Without mains power, electronics live off their own batteries, and once those run dry the device is a brick. Finding the fuse box the moment you step inside is iron law.
2. Chatting loudly in the ghost room. The game’s voice mechanics let the ghost hear you (it’s exactly why the Spirit Box wants you to speak your questions), so unnecessary shouting during setup amounts to broadcasting your position.
3. Ticking the wrong evidence. Reading a low temperature caused by player breath as Freezing Temperatures, or counting electronic interference during a Hunt as EMF Level 5, are classic misjudgments. The exact conditions for each evidence type are covered in the seven evidence types explained.
4. Letting equipment die with you. Everything you carry into the map drops when you die. Don’t haul all your expensive gear on your body at the start — keep a reserve in the truck.
5. Treating “didn’t detect it” as “it’s not there”. The Writing Book can sit for a long while before anything gets written, and the Ghost Orb requires the camera facing a dark room. When one piece of evidence won’t show, change tools or position first, then draw conclusions.

Money and XP: Your Early Growth Pace#

• Income sources: the base contract payout, optional objectives, photos, and collectibles like the Bone. Low-difficulty payouts are small but steady — this is your main saving phase.
• What to buy first: spend your first earnings on survival consumables such as Sanity Pills and Incense (two bottles of Sanity Pills run about $60 in in-game currency), then gradually move up to higher-tier equipment. The full buying order is in buying priority and loadouts.
• Levels: levels unlock maps, equipment tiers, and difficulties. The Parabolic Microphone unlocks at level 5, Writing Book tier 2 at level 23, and Insanity requires level 80. The unlock path is laid out in levels and unlock order.

Solo or Team Up#

• As a team: evidence gathering is twice as fast, and everything except the Spirit Box can be collected by multiple players in parallel; on the other hand, more players make the ghost’s interaction rolls more random, and a squad with poor voice discipline will get each other killed.
• Solo: you allocate all of your own attention, and you’re quiet — the ghost will struggle to catch you by sound; but during a Hunt there’s no teammate to pull its attention, and one hiding mistake means death.
• Recommendation: get a friend to carry you through your first three contracts or watch someone else play; once the flow makes sense, solo is perfectly playable. Phasmophobia’s matchmaking lets anyone queue together with any input method — a four-player group can be any mix of keyboard, controller, and VR.

Where to Go Next#

Once your first contract is done, your next step is understanding how each evidence type is tested so it actually counts — go straight to the seven evidence types explained. Once you can test ghosts quickly and accurately, you’ll discover the real danger isn’t thin evidence — it’s the moment the ghost starts hunting. From there, head to hunts and hiding.