Hey everyone; my name is Nicjonwik and i thought that after the recent update for this is a ghost - that i'd also update my beginners guide as a few things have changed. You can find the video guide here;
I also thought that it may be a good idea to do a written guide; I know everyone has different ways of learning - so if this helps you then fantastic!

This is a ghost is a cross between Phasmophobia and call of duty. It's like Phasmo and COD had babies and those babies went on to possess a game. It's the real American way to hunt ghosts - that being said; if you try to play this game like phasmo or the likes; you will not have a good time. This is a ghost is a completely different take on ghost hunting involving identifying the entity but also trapping and banishing the entity to the other side.

So let's begin our guide by having a quick overview of the game loading items, societies, reputation, quests and journal. It can be a good idea to familiarise yourself with items such as the journal pre game - you don't really want to be investigating your journal at the same time as investigating an entity and/or being hunted. Proper planning and all.

To help with this, Nuci games has added both a written tutorial and a video guide which can be accessed on the loading screen of the game. Make sure to also check out the help section in your journal as it goes in to detail about equipment and aspects of the game.

One great aspect of the journal as that it gives the player the ability to write notes and keep track of entities - you can do this under each entity and this also saves over games so you can easily access it whenever.

Merchant, reputation and societies

The merchant is located in the lobby and at the start screen prior to starting a game/contract. When you pull the merchant tab up; you will see it is divided in to 3 different societies. The vanguard of Gevauden, The night keeper and the twilight Ravens - this is where you can buy different upgrades, entities and maps through in game currency, hunter medals and reputation.

You will have reputation for each group/society - reputation is important as It's used to unlock certain enhancements, maps and entities. You gain reputation via successful completed contracts - obviously you gain more reputation for banishing the entity and completing quests; as well as gathering identification within the contract. However you will still receive reputation for not being able to banish the entity fully - as long as you survive. Survival is important.

It's more important to leave a contract with your life in tact than fail and perish- failed contracts lead to hunters having to pay a fee to other groups for coming in and completing their work for them - this can be as much as £300(and more) - a failed contract will also result in losing reputation. It's definitely worth keeping in mind when playing - there is no shame in evacuation.

Certain items in the merchant require a certain level or reputation. Currently reputation levels are; Hated
Ignorant
Neutral
Friendly
Respected
Legendary

Maps

This is a ghost currently has 7 maps - they vary in size and difficulty. All information for the map can be found in the centre of the lobby - it will show you overall difficulty, size of map, how many floors and recommended party size. Again, maps are unlocked by having the correct reputation, in game currency and or hunter medals.

An overview of the journal and ghost behaviour

You will use the journal to record information you have found such as the entities name, year/cause of death and favourite room as well as input evidence in order to identify which entity you are dealing with.

Your quests will be located in the mission tab of the journal. If a quest has a hunter medal attached you will see this at the side. If you are playing multiplayer; some quests are shared. They will have the word [group] beside it. This means that only one person in your party needs to do these quests for everyone to be rewarded. Remember when playing multiplayer there will be a mix of group and solo quests.

Behaviour

Beneath the quests for your contract you will see a behaviour type which you have to identify - this behaviour type will influence the ruin you place to banish the entity. Throughout the contract the entity will show you a variety of certain behaviours which will identify if it is lost, vengeful or residual. You can find a description of the types of ghost behaviour in the next tab of the journal - A lost ghost will 'grab' or jump scare you. you will see a red screen and be unable to move - lost ghosts teleport and so may trigger motion sensors placed far a part. You will know a vengeful entity - it will hunt you way before the book tells you it's going to hunt. I tend to find vengeful ghosts are aggressive and will show a lot of activity/evidence, they are said to like electronics and they may give you the 'vision of hell' painting event. Finally, a residual ghost can be the most difficult to spot. Residual ghosts are trapped in memories of the past and show themselves via a silver shadow (very easy to miss). I tend to find that residual ghosts make lights flicker the most - they are also known to produce a 'vision of hell'. You can determine you have the correct entity behaviour by how it acts in the ruin - the correct behaviour and entity will make the apparition spin in place - an incorrect behaviour or entity will cause the apparition to be stationary.

Craft

Crafting ammo is very important in this is a ghost. Each entity has a weakness to certain ammo and it is that specific ammo you need to craft when you have successfully identified which entity you are dealing with. You can find which ammo to craft in the specific entities information (entity tab in journal) page. There are 3 types of bullets - Holy water, Sacred oil and Engraved prayer. Some entities are resilient to certain bullet types and weak to one specific bullet - for instance the demon vs. holy water. Using a bullet type that's weak on the entity may cause it to become angered and even attack. I would suggest crafting ammo as soon as possible - with the last update the ammo used for the Banshee has changed. spoiler alert The banshee now requires ruby dust for banishment.

Photos

Throughout the contract the entity will do things such as opening doors, producing footprints and fingerprints - it is a good idea to take a photo of these. Each photo you take can range one, two or three star and also in price. Some photos are more lucrative than others. You can find a breakdown of this on the right side of your journal in a tab called collectables. Currently there is 53 collectable photo's to unlock. Take a photo of everything that happens - use your EMF reader to ensure the photo will count - if it doesn't beep; don't bother. The price of each photo depends on the photo taken and the quality - the closer the better.

Entities

In the entity tab you will find detailed information about each type of ghost you may be dealing with. There are 17 entities in total (accurate as of 03/27) This tab has a useful drop down menu for those times when you're experiencing high activity/hunts - so use that to get to pages quicker. In each entities page you will see a description of them, when they are likely to hunt, their speed, what equipment causes more damage, what ammo to craft, evidence required and which ingredients may anger it. You can also write up to 90 characters of notes at the bottom - i suggest you use this as it saves between games and can help your knowledge of the entities. Remember - all entities do not like running hunters. You can use the sprint in game to force evidence or hunts; more on that later. Just be mindful however that if you are running; you are in danger and causing your group great risk :).

In this section; I am going to go over the best way to set up a game and successfully banish whichever entity you are dealing with. If you prefer to see this - it is included in the Youtube video found in the introduction to this guide. This is the best way i have personally found to run a contract - you may find your play style to be different and find your own way; this is just to help you out a little in getting there.

*Taken from the perspective of keyboard and mouse - controller may vary.

Immediate objectives

When you spawn in, I would suggest turning on the activity transmitter. You do this by right clicking it - you will hear a bleep and the global activity on the bottom left of the screen will appear.

Pull out your EMF reader first; roll up the mouse wheel to set the radius to 25m or 50m if you have this unlocked. Do this before putting on your night vision. It's important to keep an eye on your EMF reader at the start of a game and until you add EMF5 or eliminate this. It can be useful in determining if you can take a photo of a certain evidence or ghost interaction - if it bleeps you can go ahead and take the photo; when it doesn't - don't bother. The EMF reader early contract may also help you find the ghost favourite room - look for where the first dots appear (remember; blue circle = newest - then yellow then white for old activity) and start searching around there.

Once you have your EMF radius set; go ahead and put on your night vision. You're going to use this to look for two things; orbs and cursed objects. Cursed objects are easy to spot - you can only see them with the night vision and there are certain spawn locations for these in every map. If you find the cursed object (it looks like a hologram) right click it first to register it and then take a photo. Enter it in to your journal and go ahead and walk through the map to locate the entities favourite room. There is a battery on the night vision - base version battery lasts 8m and 20s which should be enough time to do a walk through or two of the map without any issue. You can unlock a better battery and the ability to alter brightness via the merchant.

Orbs can be a little bit more tricky to see - they always travel to the entities favourite room. However, they can be in sneaky places such as on the wall between two rooms and outside the window - the haze will also notify you of the entities favourite room - both the haze and orbs only appear for a short time so you can miss those if you're not careful. Orbs can be large or incredibly small - have a good look and once you've checked the map; consider double checking - and triple.

If by this point you have still not found the favourite room - you may want to consider using the Ouija board or motion sensors to determine this. For larger maps; as you do your orb/object checks - start lighting candles. If you haven't found the entities room by the time you have completed a walk through of the map you are ready to use the Ouija board immediately while the global activity is still low.

If you don't want to use the Ouija board; you can identify the favourite room by entity behaviour and motion sensors. It may not lead to 100% accurate results depending on the entity type; but it is still a valid way to determine which room is the favourite. Keep in mind which room has more interactions - place a sensor there and monitor how many times that is triggered.

OK; so we have done our walk through and either found orbs and objects or not. The reason why i strongly suggest this to be your first objective is that both orbs and objects can be quickly eliminated or added to your evidence - halving the number of possible entities and allowing you to identify it much quicker.

Equipment and placement

In This is a ghost; the entity will forever roam and wander. Some will enjoy their freedom and be active - interact with objects all over the map and meet its daily step goal. Other entities may not interact quite as much with objects in other rooms but they will still roam and wander freely - all the way up to your motorbike and every corner and edge of the map.

Because of this; I highly suggest having two set up points. If you can have these two set up points within vision at the same time - even better; but this is how you are going to set up.

Set up HQ

HQ will be the place you are going to be monitoring quite a lot - it doesn't need to be the entities favourite room since they will wander and roam. If you are on a map with a house i'd suggest setting up HQ at the front door - chances of getting interaction and evidence there are high as it will be what i call a high traffic zone where the entity will often pass. What makes the perfect HQ? A central location which you feel the entity will travel frequently that also has an appropriate tunnel point (i.e a door or a terrace entrance) - the tunnel point ensures all your interactions are kept together. Trust me on this; evidence will come faster and easier.

For your set up you're going to need the following; motion sensor placed across the tunnel point, LSS placed so that it covers a large part of HQ and a foot printer placed directly in the middle of the choke/tunnel point.

Set HQ up as soon as you arrive

Set up in the entity room

By this time; I assume you have located the entities favourite room either by witnessing orbs, haze or using Ouija or motion sensors. You should have a rough idea where the entity frequently visits - you are going to set up base camp there. Its going to be the same kind of set up as HQ - if you can place your equipment in such a way that you can monitor both at the same time then perfect - if the entities favourite room makes that difficult don't worry.

Motion sensor in the doorway.
LSS covering a large part of main room.
Foot printer right in the middle of the doorway also.

You will have one motion sensor left - you can place that in a hall or near the room you are planning to banish the entity.

Gathering evidence

Obviously the aim of the contract is to gather as much evidence as possible in order to identify the entity, craft ammo/ruins and banish it to the other side. With that being said there are some ways you can manipulate the environment in order to get the evidence you need.

By this point in the game you have already identified if there are orbs and cursed objects or not. Next port of call would be to keep an eye on EMF and take the reader to any objects the entity interacts with as when you get closer to the object you may see your EMF5 appear. Use your EMF reader when using the cube event also (more on cubes later).

While your walking around with your EMF on - also have your UV flashlight turned on too. You can have this on until you see fingerprints/footprints - i tend to solely use the UV light as its what im used to - sometimes the entity wont give you UV evidence until the last minute so I just like to keep it up until I've determined which entity I'm dealing with.

Manipulate the environment for the entity and force it to give you evidence, You do this via closing doors; turning on or off lights/breaker - you can even get an entity to move away from a room using incense, so just some information to keep in mind.

Take a picture of any interaction but remember you can only have one of each photo type - you wouldn't be able to take more than one picture of objects for example or doors or two fingerprint photos - only one photo would count.

As you are waiting for evidence keep checking back to the cubes or blocks. The cubes are the set of kids toys found in different spawn locations which will spell out the entities cause of death. They can sometimes take a while to show. When the cubes are triggered - pull out your EMF reader; sometimes you can get a 5 reading but its not a guarantee.

Sometimes getting the entity to give you that final piece of evidence can take a while - use your incense to reduce the global activity if its getting too high. This will buy you time and hopefully by that point you will know which entity you are dealing with.

Sometimes you will need to use a process of elimination style of investigation in order to remove entities and find out who you are dealing with. My advice is that if the entity has written its name or death year a few times, touched doors or switches and you still don't have fingerprints or footprints - chances are they wont be there or the entity is being extremely cheeky. As you go up in difficulty levels you will find it more difficult anyway to get every piece of evidence so using the notes to find a pattern for each entity is recommended.

Evidence such as LSS, voices and drawing can take a while at times. LSS can be really easy to miss. Sometimes, LSS likes to wait until you pull your journal up to show; keep that in mind. It can also wait until the last second to show; even as late as when you have put a ruin down and try to banish the entity.

It may help to move your equipment around - pick it up and replace it again.

Armory

The gun situation in This is a ghost is fantastic. You have 3 different weapons - a pistol, shotgun and E-blaster (ghostbuster gun).

The pistol can be used to keep the entity at bay - some entities are weak to pistols this can be found in their information tab. The pistol comes loaded with 10 bullets, these are not shared in multiplayer - everyone has their own 10 bullets.

The shotgun uses whichever ammo you craft and this should be the gun of choice when banishing the entity. This ammo is shared in multiplayer so just be mindful of that. An entity can take over 3 shots to banish and so unlocking the craft enhancement may be beneficial.

The E-blaster works by shooting a blast of energy which can push back the entity. Again; some entities are weak to the E-blaster. It takes a second to recharge so use it wisely. Also if you are in the journal with your E-blaster charged and ready always exit the journal via the J key otherwise you're going to need to recharge again.

You also have a shield which is incredibly useful. The shield has a 90sec time limit - you can use this at any time to protect yourself from an entity that is either vengeful or hunting you. You can also use it when working the Ouija board and crafting ammo - it can be brought up whilst still in the journal too. If you ever need to evacuate; using the shield may save you when you are starting up your motorbike.

Obviously the objective of your contract is to fully banish the entity and leave the map with your life in tact. This involves a fight of course - so lets prepare.

By this point you should already have crafted ammo. I would suggest pulling your journal up quick and double checking which entity your dealing with - what they are strong or weak against and make sure you have the right ammo crafted to do this.

Circle the behaviour and entity type in your journal on your mission page. By doing this you will automatically set the ruin for that specific entity. Do not place your ruin too early. A ruin only stays active for around a minute and will lose charge over time. A weak ruin has more chance to break which can have horrendous consequences for your life and reputation.

Make sure you know around which global activity your entity hunts between. When the global activity is reaching that point pick your fighting spot and place your ruin.

Choosing your battleground

You want to be smart about this. If you place a ruin in any old place it could be disastrous. The entity can come from anywhere since it freely roams and so we are going to chose a battleground that is safe for us. Remember; we are in control and the entity will come to us.

What makes a good battleground?

You are going to want to stay away from going to war in the entities favourite room. That is the entities no no square OK - we're not going to do that. What we are going to do is find a room that is perhaps in direct sight of the favourite room. Its going to have only one way in or out - it should ideally have enough room to run in order to trigger a hunt if need be and you are going to place your ruin just behind the door.

Try not place the ruin in the doorway as the entity will often close the door and this way you cant clarify if you have the correct ruin

Once you place the ruin feel free to talk to the entity to entice it or run up and down however be wary that will make the entity very angry so be ready for weird stuff and to pop out that shield as soon as you can.

You will hear when the entity is hunting - with the recent update you will now see the entity particles and audio distance has also been increased. Use this to your advantage, knowing where the entity is coming from will tell you if you are in the wrong room - if that's the case you might want to change your battleground location.

It's good practice to use the entities weakness against it. For instance if the entity is weak to incense - you should put an incense down once the entity has been trapped by the ruin. I have banished a without shooting and using this method alone. So always have a look and see what the entity is weak to.

Try and let the entity be trapped in the ruin for a few seconds before you shoot. This will help you clarify if you have the correct ruin. A correct ruin will cause the entity to spin around where an incorrect ruin will cause the entity to be stationary (so you have the wrong behaviour or entity type).

Pew pew and rinse and repeat with another ruin until you have banished it. Take a photo of the particles and do a double check of the map for any information you may have missed (such as name, year of death etc).

Remember - if you need to evacuate; you've run out of ruins, you're about to lose your life etc - pop down incense and try to escape. Treat it like a fire drill - walk don't run. Put your shield up when you get to your bike and attempt to leave to save your reputation.