In Phasmophobia, keeping an eye on your Sanity level is critical, as it impacts important game aspects, including when a ghost can start hunting and whether you can safely use a cursed object. There are two measures of Sanity in Phasmophobia: a playerâs individual sanity level and the average sanity level of your team. You can track each playerâs Sanity level using the Sanity Monitor in the van, as long as youâre playing on a difficulty level that has it enabled.
Your individual Sanity level, which can be tracked via your characterâs watch, affects whether you can use a cursed object, as you need to âpayâ a certain amount of Sanity per interaction, and having an insufficient amount to do so will result in a cursed hunt (a longer, more aggressive hunt). However, the average sanity level measures the mean sanity level of all the alive players on your team, so even if your Sanity level is high, your friend could have a much lower level, dragging the overall average down. This is important as each ghost has an average player sanity threshold that, when reached, allows it to attempt to hunt. This is typically 50%, though there are some exceptions, with the Demon able to hunt at 80% and Banshee hunts triggered by its targetâs individual Sanity level.
So, if you want to delay a ghost hunt as long as possible and continue using cursed objects, you need to keep your Sanity level up. Unfortunately, thatâs not so easy, as it can begin to drain from the moment you open the door to a property, with certain conditions, unique ghost abilities, and player deaths zapping your Sanity level even further. Below, we break down how your Sanity level is drained in Phasmophobia, how to increase it, and how to prevent drain.
How Sanity is drained
In Phasmophobia, Sanity is drained in one of three ways: passively, as a result of ghost abilities and events (including killing a player), or by using cursed objects.
How Sanity is drained passively
Passive Sanity drain primarily applies when you are inside the investigation area, with the main lights of your current room (any lights connected to a wall switch) turned off. The longer you stand in the dark, the more Sanity you lose. The drain rate depends on the size of the map youâre playing, the sanity drain percentage of the difficulty level youâre playing, and whether youâre in the set-up phase.
