Posted by Phasmophobia finally released its rework of the Grafton Farmhouse map, and it is insanely spooky. The original Grafton was a small map that honestly didn’t have a whole lot going on. The map’s lighting was deceptively dark, and its design was just kind of bland. I didn’t dislike the map, but it was nowhere near my favorite. The new Grafton is incredibly creepy and has a much more unified theme that I vastly prefer to the original.
The new Grafton is run down and decrepit with some of the internal lights not really working, holes in the roof and walls, and destroyed or covered up furniture. The end result is super creepy, and that’s not even factoring in some of the room design choices. The two main standouts are the mannequin room and the doll room. There’s a room just filled with mannequins, and yes they can move. Another room upstairs has a bunch of dolls in it, and one of my friends was not a fan (in the good way) when we first explored that room. The map consists of three floors: the main floor, second floor, and attic. Funnily enough, the attic is arguably the least scary location in the house, in my opinion because the roof is collapsing so you get some of the ambient outdoor lighting shining in. On that note, the initial approach to the map is very unsettling, with a still-turning rickety windmill being the first thing that greets you.
I really like the new Grafton rework because the aesthetics of the map went from a fairly generic abandoned farmhouse to an absolutely decrepit, abandoned farmhouse that’s clearly a shadow of its former self. The unified themes and details in the map make it so much creepier than it was before. For example, apparently you can hear the sounds of something rustling in the corn by the windows. The rework does a great job of unsettling you and creeping you out.
The map’s layout isn’t exactly the same, but it is close enough to the original. I do think that the number of rooms was reduced slightly with the rework (I don’t have the original number for rooms), but I think the new layout is better and more cohesive. In the old version, there would be times where I’d wander around some of the rooms on the main floor and almost get lost because they felt bland and haphazardly connected. The rework trims down some of that fluff for the better. Each room has a definitive aesthetic that really works and makes for a good, unified horror experience. The same sentiment applies to the second floor, though maybe to a lesser extent.
Another element I like is that there seem to be a few natural hiding places you can use, much like the nursery on Tanglewood. What I mean is that the map naturally has spots you can use to hide from the ghost when it starts hunting. I fully admit that some of these may be intentional hiding spots put into the game and the difficulty I’m playing on just hasn’t blocked them off, but some of them definitely seem like nice little areas of map geometry you can use to your advantage.
Overall, I really like the new changes to Grafton Farmhouse. It has a much creepier and unsettling aesthetic while also cutting out some of the bloat present in the original map. The end result feels clean and polished from a gameplay perspective. The amount of detail, from ambient sounds to lighting to general design all work together perfectly. Grafton really went from a map I considered meh to one of the best ones in the game.
Broad Scope Entertainment 