Instructions for Ghostbusters: Blackout

Ghostbusters: Blackout box art

Ghostbusters: Blackout is a fully cooperative board game. The Ghostbusters win if the Captured Ghosts tracker reaches 15. They lose immediately if the Chaos tracker reaches 20.

Important note: this page follows the official manual as closely as practical. Where the page compresses or reorganizes wording for web use, treat it as paraphrased; if that creates any confusion, consult the official manual PDF.

Game components

  • 20 dice (5 red, 5 blue, 5 green, 5 yellow)
  • 4 colored standee clips
  • 8 character standees
  • 8 character cards
  • 1 game board
  • 23 equipment cards
  • 24 ghost cards
  • 4 free re-roll tokens
  • 12 mass hysteria tiles
  • 4 possession tokens
  • 1 captured tracker token
  • 1 chaos tracker token

Setup summary

  • Choose 4 Ghostbuster character cards and matching standees, no matter how many players are in the game.
  • In games with fewer than 4 players, some players control multiple Ghostbusters.
  • Put all 4 chosen standees in Manhattan.
  • Place the Chaos tracker on 1 and place the Caught tracker beside the Caught Ghosts track.
  • Keep the Possession and Free Re-Roll tokens within reach.
  • Shuffle the Mass Hysteria tiles and place one face down on the 5 space and one on the 10 space of the Capture Track.
  • Shuffle the Equipment deck and reveal the top 4 cards.
  • Shuffle the Ghost deck and place 1 face-up Ghost card in each of the five boroughs, starting with Manhattan and moving clockwise.

Round order

  1. Spawn Ghosts: fill any empty boroughs, starting with Manhattan and moving clockwise.
  2. Roll Dice: roll all active Ghostbusters’ dice.
  3. Activate Ghostbusters: players activate each Ghostbuster in any order, finishing one Ghostbuster’s full turn before starting the next.
  4. Clean Up: remove captured ghosts, advance the captured tracker, apply ghost text and Chaos increases, then return unused dice that are not sitting on ghost cards.

Core dice icons

  • Stream: attack ghosts
  • Trap: capture ghosts
  • ECTO-1: move to an adjacent borough
  • PKE: buy or activate equipment, and sometimes help capture ghosts
  • Ghost logo: reduce Chaos by 1, and sometimes help capture ghosts

Each die has two Stream faces. All the other icons appear once per die. A Ghostbuster may only use one Ghost-logo die to reduce Chaos each round.

Other important rules

  • Pass a die: once per round, a Ghostbuster may pass one die to another Ghostbuster in the same borough. The receiving player gets it as-is and cannot re-roll it.
  • Re-roll: at the start of a Ghostbuster’s activation, a player may discard one die and re-roll the rest of that Ghostbuster’s dice pool. This can be repeated as long as dice remain.
  • Move: a Ghostbuster may discard any two dice to move to an adjacent borough.
  • Unused dice: dice left unspent at the end of a Ghostbuster’s activation are lost for that round and do not carry over.

Capturing ghosts and chaos

To capture a ghost, players place the required dice on its card while standing in the same borough. White die spaces accept any color. Colored die spaces only accept the matching die color. Dice stay on the ghost until it is captured, even across rounds.

Chaos rises in two main ways: from ghost card effects, and from any borough that still has a ghost at the end of the round without a Ghostbuster standing there. If Chaos reaches 20, the game ends immediately in a loss.

When the Captured tracker reaches 5 and 10, reveal the Mass Hysteria tile on that space and apply its rule right away.

Equipment and possession

Equipment cards have purchase costs, and only the last player to complete the cost gets the card. Ghostbusters can hold up to 3 pieces of equipment. Equipment falls into three types: Passive, Discard, and Terrain.

If a Ghostbuster becomes possessed, place a Possession token on that character card. A possessed Ghostbuster cannot place dice on ghosts until they discard a Ghost-logo die, but they can still move, re-roll, buy equipment, reduce Chaos, and share dice.

Easy and hard mode

For an easier game, skip Mass Hysteria tiles during setup, or lower the win condition from 15 captured ghosts to 12. For a harder game, start with 2 Mass Hysteria tiles on both the 5 and 10 spaces, or begin the game at 5 Chaos for a very hard mode.

Source note

This page is based on the official Ghostbusters: Blackout rulebook provided directly in the GBWorldHub workflow on May 9, 2026. For exact wording, consult the official manual PDF.