What happens when your sanity reaches zero in Phasmophobia?

Maintaining your sanity in Phasmophobia is vital if you want to stay alive. You might be hunting ghosts in Kinetic Games’ psychological horror title, but the tables can easily be turned if your sanity level drops to zero.

Keeping your sanity level in the higher percentages is easier said than done. Your meter can be drained by searching for phantoms alone, spending too long in the dark, or seeing a ghost or some other apparition. These events will occur at some point during each game, so you can’t maintain your sanity at a specific level for an entire playthrough. What happens, then, when your sanity drops to zero?

If your meter falls to zero, you are in trouble. The ghost will actively begin hunting you, and this is the best chance it will have for killing you. You won’t die straight away, but you will be susceptible to being attacked and killed. This is even more likely if you are alone in the room that the ghost originally haunted too.

There are a couple of ways to prevent your sanity from dropping to zero or regain it if your levels fall significantly. First, it helps to have one of your crew remain behind on the investigations truck. Each player’s sanity level can be tracked by a visual monitor inside the vehicle. This person can let others know when their sanity falls below 20%, so take heed when they tell you.

To regain sanity, you can take sanity pills. You can carry these with you as you hunt ghosts, and they top your meter back up by 40%. Alternatively, you can leave the building you are investigating and head back to the truck. Regrouping with your team in well-lit areas will stop your level falling, but it won’t replenish it. You can also swap out with the truck-based teammate as their sanity will be higher than yours. You can stay behind and coordinate the team’s strategy in their place instead.