About Among Us

Among Us is an online multiplayer social deduction game developed and published by American game studio InnerSloth and released on June 15, 2018. The game takes place in a space-themed setting in which players each take on one of two roles, most being Crewmates, and a predetermined number being Impostors. The goal of the Crewmates is to identify the Impostors, eliminate them, and complete tasks around the map; the Impostors' goal is to covertly sabotage and kill the Crewmates before they complete all their tasks. Through a plurality vote, players believed to be Impostors may be removed from the game. If all Impostors are eliminated or all tasks are completed, the Crewmates win; if there is an equal number of Impostors and Crewmates, or if a critical sabotage goes unresolved, the Impostors win.

Early Development

Among Us was inspired by the real-life party game Mafia (also known as Werewolf in some areas), and was initially intended to be a mobile-only local multiplayer game with a single map; the game had no audio as to avoid revealing hidden information in a local setting. Designer Marcus Bromander paused development on studio InnerSloth's other game, The Henry Stickmin Collection, in order to build the game's first map, the Skeld. Among Us was released in June 2018 to Android and iOS, under the AppID of "spacemafia". Shortly after release, Among Us had an average player count of 30 to 50 players simultaneously. Programmer Forest Willard deemed that "it didn’t release super well" which Bromander believed was because studio InnerSloth "[is] really bad at marketing". The team intended to "[give] up on it several times", but continued work on it due to a "small but vocal player base", first adding in online multiplayer, new tasks, and customization options, and later, on November 16, 2018, releasing the game on Steam. Cross-platform play support was available upon release of the PC version.

Maps

On August 8, 2019, InnerSloth announced a second map, Mira HQ. A third map named Polus was added later that year, on November 12, 2019. Both maps initially required an additional payment of US$4, however their prices were reduced to $2 on January 6, 2020, and then made free on June 11, 2020; while the map packs are still available for purchase on all platforms, they no longer provide access to the maps, instead only giving the player the skins that were bundled with the maps.

Popularity

Among Us is quite the success story given its humble beginnings. Released in November of 2018, Among Us was developed by three people at indie studio innersloth. Among the game’s three-person team is developer Marcus B. otherwise known as PuffballsUnited. In early August, PuffballsUnited released the revamped Henry Stickmin Collection on Steam. It was not only well-received in and of itself, it also helped contribute to the massive rise in popularity that Among Us received.

October 2020 Hacks

A series of ongoing "hacks" by a player known only as "Eris Loris" have been appearing on mainly North American servers. Several players on the Among Us subreddit and on Twitter have reported the player hacking their lobbies, promoting their YouTube channel, providing links to his Discord server and sending political spam through the game chat. The hacker also threatened players that refusing to subscribe to the channel will result in their devices being hacked in to.