‘Among Us’ has spread through Generation Z like a wildfire. The multiplayer game developed by Inner Sloth was released on June 15, 2018, but has only recently gotten its rise to fame over the past couple of months. It started with a couple of Twitch streamers playing the game, but by September 2020, the game had received more than 100 million downloads and reached a player count of around 1.5 million players, which later increased to 3.8 million in late September. The game consists of a max of ten players compiled either through public or private rooms. There are three distinct maps (Skeld, Mirahq, Polus) that players can choose to play on. Once in a room, players can customize their characters with different colors and hats prior to the game starting.
Players are randomly sorted into two categories: crewmates and imposters. The crewmates must complete tasks such as fixing wires, refueling the ship, and emptying trash. They must find the imposters to win the game. The imposters have the task of sabotaging crewmates’ tasks and killing crewmates while staying unnoticed. After a crewmate is killed by an imposter, any player may report the decapitated body. From there, players use the discussion feature to guess who they think the imposter is. The chosen player gets ejected from the game. Ties between players and skipped votes amount to no one being kicked off the game. If you’re extra lucky, you get paired up with racist trolls who try to ruin the experience. If the ejected person turns out to be an impostor, the crewmates are one step closer to winning the game; if they aren’t, the imposters have the upper hand with fewer people to eliminate.
Game settings can be customized by the room leader, allowing players to play different game modes such as Imposter Hide and Seek: where no one reports bodies, Real Speed: where players move at 3x speed, and Vision Impaired: where crewmates have 0.25x vision.
Although the game seems simple enough, it is full of strategy and skill. How does one go unnoticed while killing? How does one complete their tasks without being killed? The answers lie in the players’ strategy. Imposters can sabotage the lights to kill in the dark. Crewmates can stick in groups and hope that members of their groups aren’t imposters. The endless amount of possibilities paired with its popularity among videogame streamers have propelled this obscure game to stardom.
