MetaPhysical Beginner’s Guide et conseils

Avant-propos

Dans ce guide, I would like to introduce Metaphysical to completely new players. I myself am currently barely ten hours in (+ some hours of watching streams of others playing), so I cannot claim to know this game that well. toutefois, I believe I have managed to grasp the basics well enough to help others start their Metaphysical journey! It is an amazing game that just needs its community to grow – and that includes having more guides and discussions here on Steam. If you find anything in this guide is wrong or if you think something is missing, fais-moi savoir.

The goal of the game

In each mission, tu dois figure out the type of the creature haunting the place. Alors, if you have the necessary tools, tu dois détruis-le. You must do at least one of these two to get a monetary reward! (Oui, you can actually in some cases destroy the creature while getting the type wrong)

The goal of the entire game is to destroy each type of creature multiple times to unlock more information about them, customizations and roles.

The game is made in such a way that you have to climb your way up. You do not have access to everything at first, you cannot destroy every creature. It might even be hard to identify the creature correctly at first, due to lack of equipment and experience. But getting over these initial difficulties and becoming a capable hunter is very satisfying as a result!

First game ever – buying equipment, choosing a contract…

First thing you want to do is probably checking your settings and keybinds. Change anything if necessary.

Walk to the trunk of your car and by clicking on the shopping magazine, you can buy your items. If you did a tutorial, you should already have all the most basic equipment. Si tu l'as fait’t – make sure to get one of each of these basic items – Lampe de poche, EMF device, Thermomètre, Pelle, Essence, Disposable Lighter, Ghostbox et (as much as the money will probably pain you) le Motion Detector. En outre, obtenir at least one Salt and one Chalk – the first one can be needed to kill some creatures and the second one is a vital means of protection during hunts. I suggest always keeping one chalk on you.

Extremely important – Si tu meurs, you lose all items that are not placed in the trunk (so either in your hands or placed in the house). So especially at the beginning, it will be a very good idea to not walk around with many items in your hands (and you have a lot of slots for them!). You have infinite sprint, make use of it and keep bringing your items back to the trunk as soon as you are done using them. If you normally finish a mission without dying, you do not lose the items in your hands, they will stay there.

Also notice that you can use your flashlight in your off-hand while holding other equipment by pressing the flashlight button.

More items will be unlocked as you progress in the game, and they will allow you to destroy more types of creatures and offer you more means of protection.

Choose the contract by clicking on the steering wheel of your car. A newspaper with various contracts (and other news) will appear and you can choose a map to go to. The newspaper has three pages. The contracts are random and sometimes you will not have many options.

Try a small map at first. Trumbo Street 14 et 13 are very small and great for a beginner. Salisbury street is very good too. Stretford Isle is a slightly bigger small map. If you choose Bradfordshire Street, you will need to find the correct appartment (the one that is unlocked) in the appartment building, it is not a normal house – alors ne le fais pas’t go looking for the creature in the entire place!

Identifying the creature

Il y a actuellement 18 creatures dans le jeu, so quite a few!

You can identify a creature by what evidence it exhibits (or doesn’t), by the behavior towards defense items during hunts, by the unique models of creatures you see during hunts (and sometimes they show up for a moment even outside hunts, if they are triggered enough) et plus tard from other behavior patterns (this knowledge you will only unlock after destroying enough creatures of that type – voir ‘Expert points’ dans ce guide).

I usually start the game by trying to get as much evidence as possible. Alors, if I am still uncertain about the creature type, I have to trigger a hunt to get a look at the model and get EMF (this happens a lot, you are either uncertain if you can cross out certain evidence or in some cases creatures can even have the exact same set of evidence!).

The creatures in this game walk throughout the entire place. They do not seem to have one favorite room, so you should be checking the entire place for evidence.

MOTION DETECTOR
Il’s by far the easiest evidence to check (together with ghost orbs). Great to do first! Take it to the house and place it wisely on a wall – so the creature is very likely to walk through the laser beam (the stairway, the main hallway…). If placed well, you will usually get the motion sensor within half a minute. If it still doesn’t sound after one or two minutes, it is highly likely NOT motion sensor and you can cross it out confidently. As soon as you are done with motion sensor, bring it back to the trunk – c'est cher and you do not want to lose it if you accidentally die! Note that the motion sensor is also triggered by players going through the laserbeam. You hear an obvious sound when the motion detector is triggered.

GHOST ORB
Second easiest to find or cross off. Malheureusement, you need a camera for it, which is only unlocked at level 2. Buy it as soon as you can. With turned off lights and the flashlight (to improve your vision), walk throughout the entire place. A ghost orb is a very obvious ball of light just floating about eye-level. It can move around.

FINGERPRINTS
Put your flashlight in your main hand and toggle it to UV by pressing right mouse button. Check the doors (both sides). Fingerprints are very obvious big green handprints. Even if the creature has fingerprints, it does not always leave them after interacting with doors! Enfiler’t get baited into crossing them off! I would suggest NEVER crossing fingerprints off, En fait! Sometimes you get them fast, but other times you need to keep checking for a fairly long time to see them.

COLD SPOTS and FREEZING TEMPERATURES
Évidemment, you need to use the thermometer pour ça. You can just walk around the place while watching the device. No need to point it at the ground, it measures the temperature around you, not the object you point it to. Normal temperature is around 15°C. If it drops about bellow 10°C (reste vigilant, it often happens only for a brief moment), you are having cold spots. If you notice cold spots walk around a bit more and watch out for temps bellow 0°C. When it is freezing, you can sometimes also see your breath. You may need to wait some time (and perhaps needle the creature a little bit with words) before the cold spots and freezing start showing up, donc enfiler’t give up after one check of the place – go try looking for another evidence and return back to checking temps later.

GHOSTBOX
In my humble opinion, the hardest to reliably get. Je n'en ai pas’t recommend ever crossing it off. Juste turn it on and start saying phrases and asking questions. Par exemple: “Are you friendly?”, “Où es-tu?”, “Are you here?”, “Are you old?”, “Are you female?”, “Are you pizza?”, “Are you French?”. Fairly often, it will mishear you and you will find that you have instead said some expletive… De toute façon, if you get lucky, the creature will give you an answer (both verbal and written on the ghostbox). If the ghostbox is not hearing you, try pushing windows button twice (if you have windows) and/or check you microphone setting (do you have push to talk or open mic? is the game using the right microphone?). If nothing works or you don’t have a mic at all, you have an option to use a button to ‘parler’ pour toi.

EMF and EMF5
Unlike in most ghost hunting games, you cannot get EMF off of interactions. The creature must materialize and you have to walk up close and personal to get the EMF reading. Que’s why for me, this is the very last evidence I try to get. You can trigger a hunt (see the Hunt section), lock the creature in or behind a chalk pentagram and walk close enough to get EMF without getting hit. The creatures sometimes show up for a moment even outside hunts (if they are at least a little ‘riled up’), but I have not had much luck in catching them with EMF in hand.

After marking and crossing out evidence in the journal, you can see what creatures it can be on the right side of the journal (the impossible ones will be grayed out). If there is still more than one option, look at their pages, check their information and decide based on the model you see during hunts (many ghosts have very obvious models – like Shapeshifter, Arachné, Baba Yaga, Djinn or the Nun), its behavior towards pentagrams (gets trapped in or walks around), salt etc.

Destroying the creature

Il y a five ways to destroy creatures based on their type. When you first start the game, you can only do one of them, so all other creatures, you will just have to identify and leave the mission. As you get more money and rise in levels, you will be able to buy more equipment and destroy more creatures.

BURNING THE HUMAN REMAINS
Works on Esprit, Revenant and Phantom. If you put salt into the grave d'abord, you can also get rid of Poltergeist or Buruburu. For this type of exorcism (only for this one), you need to find out the name of the creature. Look around the house for notes. They can be on the ground, on tables or in some drawers. Pick them up and look at the name on top. Mark the name in your journal on the Evidence page. Il y a (or should be) five notes sur chaque carte. Le name that shows up three times is your creature. You can look for these notes while you are checking temps, even if you still don’t know if you will need the name or not.

After getting the name, take a shovel, gasoline, disposable lighter and salt (if it is needed). Somewhere outside nearby the haunted place you will find a small cemetery. Find the grave with the corresponding name. Use the shovel on the ground in front of it, then again to break open the coffin. Si c'est’s a Poltergeist or Buruburu, now is the time to apply the salt (clic droit). Pour in the gasoline (clic droit). Maintenant, prends le plus léger, turn it on and drop it. The grave will catch on fire and you should be hearing a scream from afar.

Notice that this exorcism is quite costly – you will have to buy new gasoline and lighter (et le sel).

SHOTGUN WITH SILVER AMMUNITION
Au niveau 3, you unlock a shotgun. You can now kill three more creatures – Shapeshifter, Ghoul and Arachne.

The shotgun is loaded with salt bullets on default, you have to load it with silver first! In the trunk, click on the silver bullets it to change it. Whenever you toggle to the shotgun, it will tell you what it is loaded with in the left down corner. You only have TWO BULLETS à la fois. Then you have to go reload.

If you are dealing with Arachne, you need to first be transported into her temple by touching her during a hunt. Là, you can start shooting her. D'ailleurs, Arachne is very special – she can actually make webs around the house that you can only see with a camera and be destroyed with a lighter.

Pour Shapeshifter and Ghoul, you need to first let them walk into a chalk pentagram. Once you shoot them, it will free them from the pentagram (so stand far away!). Shooting them again outside the pentagram will end the hunt, but the creature is still alive. You need to recapture it again in another pentagram and repeat the process (enfiler’t forget to reload). It takes more shots on higher difficulties. You will know they are dead if they burst in flames.

Hunts – how to get them and, le plus important, how to survive them

En général, plus tu interact with the creature, the more active it becomes. You interact through your voice (or recently, they added an option to just use a button for those without a microphone). If you never speak to the creature, you can pretty much walk around the house for ten minutes without anything happening.

If you want the creature to be more active and to hunt, the fastest way is to start saying various expletives and/or religious words like ‘Jesus’, ‘Jesus Christ’, ‘Dieu’. I like to sing various verses from the musical Jesus Christ Superstar and it works like a charm!

What does a hunt look like? You will realize that immediately. Your character starts breathing like they have a panic attack. You cannot leave the location (the door closes). The creature will become visible and will give you EMF reading if they have it (unless it is one of the invisible creatures like a Phantom – some of those can be seen by first getting drunk on sake, you unlock that at level 4). And of course the creature will walk straight for you and start hitting you. Some creatures, when you first make physical contact with them, will first transport you to their special location and only start killing you there. Depending on the difficulty, you can take different number of hits before dying.

There is one thing that you could mistake for a hunt potentially. Il’s when things start getting blurry and you start seeing grey hallucinations. Enfiler’ne t'inquiète pas, que’s not a hunt, you might just be going a bit insane! Go cool off for a bit outside.

There are various ways of defense in this game. But not all of them work on all creatures. On each of the creature’s page in the journal, you can see what items will work.

CHALK – à mon avis, the OP most important defense item. I would suggest ALWAYS having some chalk on you, parce que c'est works on ALL creatures. Il’s just that some will step in and get trapped inside the pentagram, while others will avoid it and walk around it. So placing it in a doorway or other narrow place will create the perfect barrier between you and any creature. Beware that the pentagram will wear off after some time and the chalk is a one use item. And you cannot place a new pentagram over the old one. Il’s a good idea to have one in your hand at all times + at least one more in your trunk. Get it from the very start!

SALT – you can place 3 piles of salt with one pack. It is one use item. Enfiler’t place it too long before the hunt (or ideally just do it during the hunt), parce que it disappears after some time has passed. Some creatures cannot walk through salt, so if you place the salt to block off a door entrance (or a hallway, anything narrow), you can safely place yourself on the other side from the creature.

HOLY WATER – unlocked at niveau 2. Certain creatures can be driven away by spraying them with this item. Ne’t work on all of them.

FUSIL DE CHASSE – unlocked at niveau 3. If you load it with SALT (by clicking on the bullets in the middle of the trunk), you can use it to temporarily drive away some creatures. Encore, not all of them. You have two bullets, then you have to go load it again in the trunk.

HUNTING KNIFE – débloqué au niveau 6. You can stab some creatures to drive them away for a bit.

KATANA – débloqué au niveau 7. Some creatures are scared off by the katana.

Money rules the world – so how to get more?

In Metaphysical, you quickly realize you need a LOT of money. Many items are one use only. If you die with any equipment on you or in the house, il’s lost forever and you have to buy it again.

To get ANY money from a mission, you must either correctly identify the creature or destroy it (or both of course).

En outre, you will receive money for collecting artifacts that are laying around on the map somewhere – a music box, a goblet, a teddy-bear, a book… I usually find three on each mission, but sometimes only two (so either there can be 2 à 3 on a map, or there are always 3 and I just sometimes don’t find the last one – most likely the latter).

More money is received for correctly marking in the evidence the creature exhibits in your journal. For each evidence you correctly mark or not mark/cross out in the journal, you get a little bit of money. So after you identify the creature, make sure to check what evidence it has on its page and make sure it is all marked on the ‘Preuve’ page. Après cela, select the creature type! Every time you change anything about the evidence, it will put the creature selection on default and you have to choose it again!

Playing on higher difficulty will result in a higher reward for killing the creature.

Expert points