Pacify

About Pacify

Pacify is a multiplayer horror game by Shawn Hitchcock, published by Hitchcock Games. It came out on Steam for Windows and Mac in February 2019, on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S in April 2025 and on Nintendo Switch in October 2025, and it is also sold for PlayStation 4. You are a new employee of PAH Inc., a company hired to pacify, weaken and capture supernatural creatures.

The first job is an old house built over a century ago that once served as a funeral parlour. Its owners were said to offer a ritual for speaking to the dead one last time, until something went wrong and they vanished. People in town talk of laughter in the house and a little girl at the window. A broker wants to sell the place and hires PAH to prove it is safe.

Inside you find keys and hunt down nine marked dolls that giggle and move around the house, then burn them in the furnace with wood and matches. You can carry only one item at a time and cannot fight back. The girl changes between calm and evil depending on what happens, and once the evil takes over she chases you through the narrow corridors, listening and watching for you. The more you burn, the faster and smarter she gets.

The later missions each bring their own monster and rules: feeding an insatiable farmer on a farm at night, gathering items for rituals that weaken an invisible witch in the woods, and keeping PAH headquarters safe during a power outage while shadow monsters steal your items. Each mission has more than one ending.

It plays best with friends. In co-op you save each other by interrupting the girl when she grabs someone; in PvP the interns compete for one full-time job, and shoving a rival to the floor stuns them for five seconds and makes them drop their keys. Proximity voice chat, with voice-changing effects, means you hear a friend scream from the next room. Alone it is much harder, since you must do the work of two to four people. Reviewers praise its sound and lighting and note the monsters' stiff animations; it suits a group looking for a cheap night of shared jumpscares more than someone after a long story.

How to play Pacify

1. Pick a mission and play alone or host a lobby for up to four players in co-op or PvP.
2. Explore the location and learn what its entity reacts to.
3. Find keys to open locked rooms and collect the items the mission needs, such as marked dolls, wood and matches, one at a time.
4. Use the items as the notes describe, burning the dolls in the furnace in the house, while staying out of the entity's sight and hearing.
5. In co-op, interrupt the entity when it catches a teammate to free them.

Tips

• Pick up wood and matches whenever you see them while searching for dolls; you can carry one of each.
• Drop an ordinary doll to distract the girl when she is on your trail.
• Move quietly and keep lights low; the girl reacts to sound, light and sight.
• Try a solo run to learn the house, then bring friends: co-op is how the game is meant to be played.

Questions