Yurei

Yurei
Abilities	May randomly shut a door and deduct nearby players' sanity
Weakness(es)	Will be temporarily confined to its room after smudging
Evidence

„A Yurei is a ghost that has returned to the physical world, usually for the purpose of revenge or hatred.”

—The Journal

The Yurei is a type of ghost in Phasmophobia. Although it does not have any implicit bonuses to its ability to hunt, its main distinction is its ability to quickly drain sanity: if players are careless, it may become aggressive quicker than anticipated.

Behaviour

Activity

When Incense is used on the Yurei, in addition to preventing hunts and temporarily increasing activity, it will return to its favourite room and be trapped within it for 90 seconds, stopping it from roaming through the location. It can still leave that room by performing a ghost event, but it will return to it once the event ends. If the Yurei is affected by incense during a hunt, it will only be trapped in its favourite room after the hunt ends for the remaining time of the cleansing effect.

Outside of its ability, the Yurei doesn't have an increased chance to interact with doors.

Advanced mechanics
WARNING: This data is based on testing and not officially verified.
D.O.T.S state	The Yurei cannot enter a D.O.T.S state while it is affected by an Incense's cleansing effect.

Ability

When choosing to use its ability, the Yurei will first check if its current room has an opened door. Doors that count for this ability are mostly room doors, as well as exit doors, large tent doors on campsites, Dining Room cabinet doors and Living Room/Games Room fireplace doors on Point Hope, and washing machine doors on Sunny Meadows. Hiding spot doors, however, do not count.

If the check is successful, the following is caused:

• All players within 7.5 metres of the ghost will have their sanity decreased by 15%. Players outside the investigation area will not be affected by the sanity drain.
• The ghost will randomly select one opened door in the room and close it fully. This in turn produces two EMF 2 interactions on that door.
  • All ghosts can shut a door in the same way the Yurei can, however the Yurei will do this much more frequently as it is connected to its sanity drain ability.
  • Large tent doors will not fully close.

Evidence

• Ghost Orb
• Freezing Temperatures
• D.O.T.S Projector

Strengths and weaknesses

These are the strengths and weaknesses as listed in the journal:

Strength: Yureis have been known to have a stronger effect on people's sanity.

Weakness: Smudging the Yurei's place of death will trap it temporarily, reducing how much it wanders.

Strategies

Generally, keeping doors wide open near the ghost will help one to observe when the Yurei uses its ability.

• If the ghost shuts an exit door fully without a ghost event or hunt, then it is almost certainly a Yurei.
  • Check for Ultraviolet evidence on the exit door; if it is present on the door, then it is a Mimic that is mimicking a Yurei, not an actual Yurei.
• If the ghost shuts any other door fully, then it is very likely (but not definitely) a Yurei.

Any ghost can shut a non-exit door in the exact same manner, including the double touch and delayed shut sound effects. Some points to consider:

• The chance of other ghosts doing this compared to the Yurei is exceedingly low; one may not see this happen in many hours of gameplay.
• The Yurei can perform this action without draining sanity, since it is not exclusive to the ability. However, the chance of this happening is much lower than the ability itself happening.
• Any ghost can close doors (whether exit or non-exit) during a hunt or a ghost event; one should only look out for the identifier outside of hunts and ghost events.

The Yurei ability does not involve opening doors, only closing.

Rarely, doors can be pushed without actually grabbing them to do so. This can be mistaken for the ghost slamming the door. Use an EMF Reader to check if the ghost actually interacted with the door.

All this being said, it is worth noting that the Yurei's ability is not particularly common, further exacerbated if the Yurei is occupying a room with no valid doors, in which case it will simply never use it. For an alternate strategy if the Yurei refrains from using its ability, one can look out for its special interaction with Incense once its favourite room is found: use it on the ghost, then set up Salt such that the piles cover the exit/doorway to the room. If the ghost passes through the salt and exits the room within 90 seconds of it being affected by the Incense, and without having performed a ghost event to do so, then it is not a Yurei.

Ultimately, however, the Yurei is one of the more evidence-dependent ghost types to conclusively identify, making it particularly difficult to puzzle out on reduced evidence difficulties like Nightmare and Insanity.

Trivia

• Yūrei (meaning "dim spirit" or "faint spirit") is a general term for ghosts or spirits in Japanese. Yūrei can be motivated by a wide range of emotions relating to their death (or last thought when dying) that can range from benevolent (caring for children, handing out sweets, etc.) to malevolent (getting revenge, making others suffer, etc.). Yūrei contain a range of sub categories of ghosts including Onryō and Goryō. The appearance of a Yūrei can vary just as much as its purpose, some are indistinguishable from normal people while others can resemble horrific monsters.
• The Yurei is commonly regarded as a very difficult ghost to identify, along with the Goryo, due to its lack of hunting abilities, oftentimes uncommon ability usage, and no obvious weaknesses.
• The Yurei, though regarded as having a "stronger effect on people's sanity", does not increase the passive sanity drain of players, nor does it have an increased drain from pseudo-line of sight like with the Phantom. Furthermore, the Jinn's ability to drain 25% sanity rather than the Yurei's meager 15% while the Jinn has other abilities ironically makes the Yurei weak when juxtaposed to other ghosts.

History

Early Access Alpha
5 August 2020	Added Yurei.
Early Access
0.2.11.0	Added the Yurei's ability to drain sanity of nearby players.
0.3.0	Prior to 0.3.0, the evidence was Ghost Orb, Ghost Writing, and Freezing Temperatures.
0.5.0	Doors near the Yurei will now close when it uses its sanity drain ability.
0.5.1.0	Only one door will now close instead of multiple when the sanity drain ability is used.
0.6.2.0	Players outside the investigation area will no longer be affected by the Yurei's sanity ability.
0.8.0	The Yurei can no longer use its ability if it is in a room that does not have a door.