Phasmophobia's July 21 QoL Update: Animations Cut, Ghost Behavior Revised

Kinetic Games developer Tom Dent has detailed what's coming in Phasmophobia's Quality of Life update, scheduled to launch July 21, 2026 alongside the reworked 13 Willow Street map. The update is the first of two; a second, smaller batch of fixes is expected in late August.

What changed

• Hand animations removed — grabbing, dropping, moving doors, and hovering over interactable objects no longer play animations for the local player, intended to speed up gameplay. The drop animation still appears to other players in the session.
• Sunny Meadows door-locking revised — the Ghost will only lock a wing's doors if both it and a player are inside that wing.
• Obake shapeshift now counts toward the Ghost video objective.
• Apocalypse challenge now accepts any captured Media, not just photos.
• Tutorial updated — recording Ghost Orbs is now required, rather than simply having them appear on the video camera screen.
• Eye Adaptation now adjusts lighting more quickly when opening and closing the Journal; console players gain the ability to toggle Eye Adaptation on or off.
• Cosmetics shop — the camera zoom will focus on the selected character part; cosmetics no longer earnable will be hidden.

The July 21 release will also include new keybinds — PC players will be able to use keys 1–4 to switch inventory slots — plus unspecified evidence-collection improvements, which Kinetic Games says will be detailed in a blog the week before launch.

For regular players, the removal of hand animations alone stands to make moment-to-moment ghost hunting feel noticeably snappier.