I didn’t expect to get as invested in Phasmophobia as I have in recent years. When the game first launched, it seemed like a lighthearted multiplayer title best suited to streamers or players who didn’t take horror too seriously. But the more I played, the more I realized I was wrong. The team at Kinetic has stayed dedicated to building a genuine horror experience—whether playing alone or with friends.
Hot off the heels of the addition of the Point Hope Lighthouse map and the drastically redesigned Bleasdale and Grafton Farmhouses comes the highly anticipated Nell’s Diner—a simple yet deeply atmospheric new map that adds a lot of dynamism without completely overwhelming players.
Something I really liked about Phasmophobia’s Point Hope map was how it experimented with verticality, and seeing more maps that played on somewhat traditional styles interested me more than just making haunted houses. Nell’s Diner feels like a map that fits this design philosophy. From the moment you step outside your mobile ghost-hunting unit, an unnerving atmosphere hangs in the air.
The sound of flickering fluorescent lights pierces the silence as a massive neon sign looms above. A lone police car sits abandoned outside the diner, bathing the front of the building in a swirl of red and blue. Once inside, players are transported to a bygone era. Between two dining areas lined with red leather booths sits a front counter marked by signboards for the daily specials and long-forgotten coffee pots.
Players can enter the back of Nell’s through the kitchen, which has a foreboding ambiance. A centre island grill is surrounded by prep counters, making the room feel claustrophobic and offering few places to hide during a hunt. Beyond the kitchen are the employees’ area, the manager’s office and the maintenance rooms.
From the dining area, a short hallway connects to the customer bathrooms and the employees’ area. The layout, while simple, creates a labyrinth-like sense of separate rooms and connecting corridors. Because the design of Nell’s closely mirrors an authentic diner—speaking as someone who has worked in one—it also limits the number of hiding spots players have come to expect in the Phasmophobia experience.
“…little signs and newspapers scattered around the building reference other areas and events within the Phasmophobia mythos.”
That’s the beauty of Nell’s Diner. On the surface, it’s a relatively simple map—in terms of overall size, it’s only a little bit bigger than Phasmophobia’s first map, 10 Tanglewood Drive. But the way it’s designed to emulate an actual restaurant makes it feel somewhat disorienting to navigate—especially in the dark. It creates a sense of constant unease and panic where, despite being a small map, there’s nowhere really to run and even fewer places to hide.
Much like with Point Hope and the updated Farmhouses, the level of environmental detailing and interactable objects in Nell’s is through the roof. A lone jukebox will play a single rock ‘n roll track, arcade machines will light up the title screen, accompanied by theme music, and little signs and newspapers scattered around the building reference other areas and events within the Phasmophobia mythos.
I’ve said before that you don’t need big bells and whistles to make an effective horror game—just engaging gameplay and a strong atmosphere—and with every update, Kinetic continues to prove its grasp of this. Nell’s Diner is a small but remarkably engaging new map that shows the team’s commitment not only to building a solid horror game, but to crafting an experience that is interesting, visually distinct and always evolving.
Also, there’s a particularly creepy sign for something called “Cyric’s Carnival,” and I am PROFOUNDLY excited about the idea that could be an upcoming map.
