To contain anomalies in Phantom Line: Prologue, you run a four-person squad operation against a hostile zone: secure the perimeter, find the anomaly with equipment rather than by luck, hold the angles while you work, and get everyone out.
More context
The anomalies themselves change between runs and they are found inside procedurally generated Anomaly Pockets, so the run is something you prepare for and execute — not a sequence you can memorise.
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What an anomaly is
An anomaly is a paranormal event or activity hidden from the public. They enter the world through tears in the fabric of space-time, and they manifest in two broad ways: as monstrous entities, and as reality-warping hazards that attack the area itself.
That is why containment is the task the whole game is built around. You are a paranormal SWAT unit working for Mortfield Industries, sent out to locate and contain them — and containment is what earns you the resource that pays for everything else you build.
On the island you will also meet hostile human factions and wild animals. They are threats, but they are not anomalies, and clearing them does not advance the job the way containment does.
Where containment happens
Anomalies are encountered inside Anomaly Pockets — procedurally generated realities entered through unstable portals on the island. The puzzles and challenges inside require careful observation, and layouts and challenges change between runs, so the same anomaly can present differently when you come back to it.
Because the anomaly is found inside the generated space rather than in a fixed building, the run is a commitment of resources: a husk body, provisions for the time you will spend inside, and detection gear. The anomaly pockets guide covers what is on the other side of the portal and how much it costs to enter.
How to contain anomalies in a run
A containment run is squad work against a hostile zone, not a duel with a single target. Missions are described as four-person squad operations, and the work they call for is the same every time regardless of which anomaly is inside:
Secure the perimeter before you advance.
A containment operation that has not been held from the outside is an operation you will have to fight twice.
Watch for enemies that phase through solid matter.
Cover is not permanent against these, so the positions you pick are positions you have to keep checking.
Check corners and hold angles.
The angle you are covering is the one that gets tested, and inside a generated layout you cannot assume which corner that will be.
Cover doors.
Anything that opens in a hostile zone is a way in, and it is the one you will be glad you watched when you needed to leave quickly.
Revive each other.
A downed Operator is the difference between a contained anomaly and an abandoned site, and reviving costs time the zone keeps charging interest on.
Find and contain the anomaly.
This is where the detection gear earns its place in the loadout.
Loot, then pull out.
Clearing a site surfaces audio logs and strange relics as well as supplies, and all of it is worth more if you get back with it.
The reason to plan rather than improvise is that steps one through five are preparation and steps six and seven are execution. You get one shot at the execution, and it goes badly if the preparation was skipped.
Detection is equipment
Detection in Phantom Line: Prologue is equipment-driven. You do not locate an anomaly by looking hard enough; you locate it with gear that someone is carrying.
- The Ectometer is the dedicated paranormal detector.
- Scanners pick up heat signs from spirits.
- A motion tracker can be assigned to one squad member.
This gear is deliberately divided across the squad rather than duplicated, which produces the failure case that makes containment a planning problem: if the scanner fails while the team is depending on it, the team is blind. Nobody else was carrying a second scanner to fall back on.
That is the practical reason to agree the detection loadout before you deploy rather than sorting it out at the threshold. Who holds the Ectometer, who carries the tracker, and what you do when the scanner is the thing that breaks is part of the wider squad arrangement — the co-op guide covers how that assignment interacts with body count and the rest of a four-person operation.
What a cleared site gives you
Two things come out of a cleared site, and they are different currencies.
The first is loot — supplies and equipment, plus the audio logs and strange relics that carry the site's lore. Looting is part of the run rather than something you do after it, which is why step seven above is part of the operation and not an epilogue.
The second is Quintessence. Containment is what produces it: the resource is obtained after containing anomalies, so no containment means no Quintessence regardless of how well you looted the rest of the site.
It also means the order you secure sites in changes what a run is worth, since progression can vary with the order in which sites are secured. Where the resource goes once you have it — supernatural resistance, abilities and tactical gear, all applied to the husk body — is covered in quintessence upgrades.