As the Coronavirus pandemic continues, many are searching for new ways to connect with people. It seems that the online multiplayer video game Among Us is everyone’s new favorite pastime.
Development company Intersloth released Among Us on June 15th, 2018, but initially it was not getting many players. In the last month and a half, it has shot to heights of popularity its servers can barely handle. It has had an influx of millions of new users, mostly because it gained popularity on Twitch, a video game streaming service.
When playing Among Us, one’s avatar is a spacesuit character with a variety of different color and hat options. When the game begins, players are assigned the role of either the crewmate or the imposter. The crewmates go around the world/map completing tasks, and the imposters try to kill all the crewmates. When a body is discovered, the players can vote on who they think the imposter is, and if all the imposters are voted out, the crewmates win. But, if all the crewmates are killed, the imposters win.
“Among Us is fun because you can customize your character and play with friends or strangers. I like the adrenaline of being the imposter, even though it stresses me out,” says junior Elana Bender who downloaded the game recently due to the Among Us craze sweeping the internet.
What about Among Us makes it so fun that no one can get enough of it? For starters, it’s a multiplayer game, which is currently the most popular genre of video game as a whole. Especially during this time of COVID-19, people are constantly searching for socially distant ways to have fun with other people. It’s also a great way to spend time with your friends and see how good they are at lying to you.
It’s also fun to play Among Us with a random group of strangers who all happen to have joined the same server. Playing online is “appealing because it’s anonymous; it’s thrilling knowing you get to be a character in another place where no one knows you. It’s almost as if you are in your own Mission Impossible and have a civic duty to find the imposter,” says Nicolette Aarons, an SMHS junior.
Among Us is almost the video game version of classic party games like Mafia, or Scratch Murderer, but with a whole world built in. It forces you to suspect your peers, and you have to figure out who you think you can trust, all while trying not to make a fatal mistake. It can be really fun when you know the world map really well, because then a crewmate can try to figure out if an imposter is faking a task to throw suspicion off of them.
It’s entertaining to watch other people play Among Us as well, which is part of the reason it’s so popular. Influencers are streaming themselves playing it on Twitch, posting videos of their friend groups playing it on YouTube, and even releasing game codes to let them play with their fans. The game gets a ton of outreach, and thus more downloads because of that.
The three staff members behind self proclaimed indie development company Innersloth never predicted the heights of popularity their creation has attained. They’ve decided to cancel the release of Among Us 2, and instead put all that content into updates for the original game and work on upgrading their servers.
All in all, Among Us is popular because it’s enjoyable! It’s got thrill, mystery, and human interaction. And in a time when we can’t see anyone outside of our families, what more could a person want?