Phasmophobia offers five preset difficulty options, plus a custom and challenge mode, for you to choose from. But these difficulty levels don’t simply dictate how aggressive the ghost will be; they also influence critical aspects such as how much official evidence you can gather, how quickly your Sanity drains, the number of cursed possessions, how long (if any) set-up time you get, and, most importantly, your rewards.

That doesn’t mean you should jump to Insanity, the hardest preset difficulty level in Phasmophobia, as soon as you have a few successful contracts. Beginners should start on Amateur mode, where you’re offered a bit more leniency. Then, once you begin leveling up, unlocking higher-tier equipment, and becoming more comfortable gathering evidence, escaping the ghost, and identifying unique ghost abilities, you should gradually increase your difficulty level.

Higher difficulty levels, like Nightmare and Insanity, are when a lot of Phasmophobia’s tips and tricks are particularly important to know, as investigations are much more challenging and the ghosts more lethal–with some difficulty levels offering only one or two pieces of official evidence. But once you graduate to these higher levels and can complete these contracts successfully with ease, the rewards are huge, with Insanity offering a x6 multiplier on your normal cash and experience payout. If you’re feeling particularly brave, you can adjust Custom settings to take on the game’s Apocalypse Challenges.

Below, we break down all the available difficulty options in Phasmophobia, including the player level required to unlock them, their settings, and reward multipliers.

Amateur

Amateur is unlocked for all players immediately. This difficulty level is best for beginners as it offers a long set-up time (how long you get before the ghost can hunt), long grace period (cooldown between hunts), and short hunt duration. Sanity pills also restore a lot of sanity and you can regain half of your lost equipment if you die.  

Amateur player settings

Amateur ghost settings

Amateur contract settings

Intermediate

Intermediate difficulty is unlocked at player level 10 and is best for those who have outgrown Amateur, but are still learning the ropes. This standard-level mode offers an average set-up time, hunt grace period, and hunt duration. In addition, sanity pills restore some sanity, but the fuse box starts off, there are fewer places to hide, and you’ll only regain some of your lost equipment if you die.

Intermediate player settings

Intermediate ghost settings

Intermediate contract settings

Professional

Unlock at player level 20, Professional is for those who feel pretty comfortable in their ghost hunting abilities, but still have some trouble identifying a ghost without evidence. On this difficulty level, the ghost’s room can change (albeit rarely), there’s no set-up time, hunts are longer, and the grace period between hunts is shorter. In addition, there are much fewer hiding places, you’ll lose all your equipped items when you die, and the fuse box will always be off when you start a contract.

Professional player settings

Professional ghost settings

Professional contract settings

Nightmare

Unlocked at player level 30, Nightmare difficulty is for ghost hunters who want to seriously increase the challenge. If you’re comfortable engaging with long ghost hunts with limited hiding places, smudging, and identifying ghosts without three pieces of evidence, then this may be the difficulty level for you. 

Nightmare player settings

Nightmare ghost settings

Nightmare contract settings

Insanity

Unlocked at player level 40, Insanity is for those who are feeling brave. This is the most challenging of the preset difficulty modes in Phasmophobia, offering little to no hiding spaces, only one piece of evidence, no cursed objects, and longer hunts that increase in duration every time the ghost kills a member of your team.

Insanity player settings

Insanity ghost settings

Insanity contract settings

Challenge Mode

Challenge Mode is a limited time difficulty level that changes every week. There are 26 challenge mode possibilities, each with its own difficult settings, forced equipment loadout, and task to complete a set number of times. Completing the challenge grants you $5,000 and 5,000 XP, so it’s worth trying them. 

Custom

Custom does what it says on the tin. You can adjust all the player, ghost, and contract settings to your liking, with the reward multiplier automatically calculated based on how challenging the settings you’ve chosen are. However, activating certain settings that make the contract far too easy, such as ‘Friendly Ghost’ (where the ghost doesn’t hunt), will result in no rewards.

Apocalypse Challenges

In Phasmophobia, Apocalypse Challenges are extremely tough single-player challenges you can find on the event board, with each offering a special trophy, ID card, and badge to those who complete them. Unlockable at player level 50, there are three Apocalypse Challenges, each requiring you to identify the ghost, complete all optional objectives, and take a photo of the ghost during one contract. 

The hardest part? You need to be playing Sunny Meadows Mental Institution by yourself, on the highest difficulty level–which can be set through Custom difficulty–with Apocalypse I requiring x6 or higher rewards multiplier, Apocalypse II requiring x10 or higher, and Apocalypse III requiring x15 (the highest custom difficulty in the game). If you want to take it on, here are the settings you can use.

Apocalypse player settings

Apocalypse ghost settings

Apocalypse contract settings

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