Among Us is a 2018 online multiplayer social deduction game developed and published by American game studio Innersloth. The game was inspired by the party game Mafia and the science fiction horror film The Thing. The game allows for cross-platform play; it was released on iOS and Android devices in June 2018 and on Windows later that year in November. It was ported to the Nintendo Switch in December 2020 and on the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S in December 2021. A virtual reality adaptation, Among Us VR, was released on November 10, 2022. Among Us takes place in space-themed settings where players are colorful, armless cartoon astronauts. Each player takes on one of two roles: most are Crewmates, but a small number are Impostors. Crewmates work to complete assigned tasks in the game while identifying and voting out suspected Impostors (who appear identical to Crewmates) using social deduction, while Impostors have the objective of killing the Crewmates. While the game was initially released in 2018 to little mainstream attention, it received a massive rise in popularity in 2020 due to many Twitch streamers and YouTubers playing it during the COVID-19 pandemic. It received favorable reviews from critics for fun and entertaining gameplay. The game and its stylized characters have been the subject of various internet memes. Among Us is a multiplayer game for four to fifteen players.[6] Up to three players are randomly[7] and secretly chosen to be the Impostors each round. As of 2021, four playable maps are available: a spaceship called "The Skeld", an office building called "MIRA HQ", a planet base called "Polus",[8] or "The Airship", a setting from Innersloth's Henry Stickmin series.[9][10] The Crewmates can win the game one of two ways: either by completing all assigned tasks or by ejecting all Impostors. Impostors can likewise win in two ways: either by killing or ejecting all Crewmates,[c] or by sabotaging a critical system on the map (provided the Crewmates do not resolve it in time).[d][8][11] At the start of the game, Crewmates are assigned "tasks" to complete around the map in the form of minigames, minipuzzles, and simple toggles, mostly consisting of maintenance work on vital systems such as fixing wires and downloading data.[12] Impostors cannot complete tasks but may pretend to perform "fake" tasks to feign appearance as legitimate Crewmates. Impostors, however, can perform sabotages, ranging from minor (such as disabling lights, limiting the Crewmates' vision) to critical (such as disabling oxygen generators), requiring immediate counteraction by Crewmates to prevent their deaths. Impostors may enter and traverse ventilation ducts (commonly known as "venting"), and kill nearby Crewmates. To help Crewmates identify Impostors, there are various surveillance systems on each map, Amid its popularity, Innersloth considered releasing the game to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles, but encountered a problem in implementing player communication, since standard text-based or voice-based chat seemed unusable. They considered a system similar to the "quick comms" system from Rocket League, as well as the possibility of developing an entirely new communication system for the game.[17][18] Versions of the game for Xbox consoles were later announced.[57] Among Us was released for the Nintendo Switch on December 15, 2020, the same day it was announced during an Indie World showcase. The Switch version supports cross-platform play with the mobile and Windows versions.[58] This port was published by PlayEveryWare.[59] Upon release, the Switch version had an exploit to access The Airship prior to its official release in early 2021.[60] The exploit was fixed two days after release in the Switch version's first update.[61][62] Among Us was released digitally for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S consoles on December 14, 2021, along with its release on the Xbox Game Pass for console. These versions support cross-platform play with existing Windows, Switch, and mobile versions. Unique to the PlayStation ports are special customization options based on Ratchet & Clank. Physical releases for consoles were available in Europe the same day, while North American physical releases were released in January 2022.[63] In August 2020, the team shifted focus onto a sequel, Among Us 2.[g][36] During this time, Forest Willard and Amy Liu continued to update Among Us, increasing the maximum player base, adding four servers and three regions, and implementing longer multiplayer codes to support more concurrent games.[37] On September 23, 2020, the team announced that they abandoned development of the sequel in favor of reworking the original game's codebase, which they described as "outdated and not built to support adding so much new content", so the team made plans to rework the game's core code to enable adding new features.[38][39][40] The team subsequently announced their plans to fix the game's server issues and widespread cheating problem,[41] as well as add a system for banning disruptive players.[42] In October 2020, colorblind support for the "wires" task was added to the Among Us beta on Steam, as well as some previously unannounced lobby customization options.[43] In mid-February 2021, the game added a feature called Quickchat, which replaces the standard chat interface with a series of preset phrases that players must pick from. Players under the age of 13 are required to use Quickchat, but those over 13 are also allowed to use Free Chat, which allows them to type text messages.[44] First announced at The Game Awards 2020, the Airship map was released on March 31, 2021.[9][10] The Airship features multiple floors, contraptions, tasks, and "more".[45] In addition, Game Awards presenter Geoff Keighley's face was added as a skin. The map itself is based upon the Henry Stickmin series' Toppat Clan Airship.[46] Innersloth also stated that the map would be free to all players.[47][10] It also features a skin bundle that includes Henry Stickmin-themed cosmetic that can be bought on Steam.[10] The accounts system was implemented along with the update, and it allows players to report players that are not following Innersloth's Code of Conduct in order to make the game a welcoming and respectful place. Punishment includes temporary to permanent bans. They also stated that reports would be viewed manually and not by bots, that account creations would be required if players want to use Free Chat or to customize their nicknames, and that people under the age of 13 would need their parents' permission to create an account. Implementing an account system also allowed Innersloth to add account linking and a friending system in future updates.[48][49] Innersloth later revealed on the game's official Twitter account a new color to the game, Rose, which was included in the game's next update along with five other colors: Coral, Tan, Gray, Maroon, and Banana, which were revealed during Summer Game Fest on June 10, 2021, alongside other upcoming content, including a fifth map, new Hide & Seek game mode, and new roles.[50] The new colors, along with 15 player lobby support, new meeting screen and revamp at the game's design, was released on June 15, 2021, during the game's third anniversary.[6] On July 7, 2021, Innersloth released a minor update that adds a new task, "Clean Vent", which involves the Crewmate cleaning a specific vent, preventing Impostors (and as of the November 9 update, Engineers) from using it, as well as some icon changes.[51] On November 9, 2021, a major update was released that introduced four new roles (Shapeshifter, Engineer, Scientist, and Guardian Angel), achievements, a level system, controller support, custom keybinds, visor cosmetics, cosmetic bundles called "Cosmicubes", various in-game currencies, and a major revamp to the in-game store, which also reveals the names of the costumes.[52] On March 31, 2022, a friending system was added, which allows players to see who they recently played with, send and receive friend requests, send and receive lobby invites, as well as the ability to block people.[53] On June 21, 2022, the game was patched to include colorblind text.[54] At The Game Awards 2022 on December 8, 2022, it was announced that the Hide & Seek mode would be released the following day.[55] During an Nintendo Direct, the fifth map, "The Fungle", was announced and is set to be released October 2023.[56] While Among Us was released in 2018, it was not until mid-2020 that it saw a surge of popularity, initially driven by content creators online in South Korea and Brazil. Bromander stated that the game is more popular in Mexico, Brazil, and South Korea than in the United States.[27][5] According to Willard, Twitch streamer Sodapoppin first popularized the game on Twitch in July 2020.[27] Many other Twitch streamers and YouTubers followed suit, including prominent content creators xQc, Pokimane, Shroud, Ninja, MrBeast, Disguised Toast and PewDiePie.[39][68][24][69] The COVID-19 pandemic was frequently cited as a reason for the popularity of Among Us, as it allowed for socializing despite social distancing.[27][70][71][72][73] A cosplay of crewmate Emma Kent of Eurogamer believed that the release of Innersloth's The Henry Stickmin Collection also contributed to awareness of Among Us,[39] and PC Gamer's Wes Fenlon credited Twitch streamer SR_Kaif for "prim[ing] Among Us for its big moment." Fenlon also praised Among Us for improvements over other popular tabletop games that had been inspired by Mafia, such as Secret Hitler. He said other video game adaptations of Mafia such as Town of Salem and Werewolves Within were "just add[ing] an online interface for the basic Werewolf rules," whereas Among Us is as an entirely new take on the concept.[24] Along with Fall Guys and the Jackbox Party Packs, Among Us provided a narrative-less experience that helped to avoid the "cultural trauma" of the pandemic, according to M.J. Lewis of Wired.[74] The game's popularity continued into the following months. YouTube reported that videos about Among Us were viewed 4 billion times in September 2020,[75] and TikTok videos related to Among Us had over 13 billion views in October 2020.[76] YouTuber CG5 wrote a song based on the game in September 2020, titled "Show Yourself", and gained over 60 million views in four months.[77][h] In September 2020, the game exceeded 100 million downloads[24] and its player count rose to 1.5 million concurrent players[4][78] (nearly 400 thousand of which were on Steam),[32] then peaked at 3.8 million in late September.[79] The sudden increase in players overloaded the game's server, which according to Willard was "a totally free Amazon server, and it was terrible." This forced him to work quickly, under crunch time, to resolve these issues.[30] In August 2020, Innersloth opened an online store for Among Us themed merchandise.[21] The game's popularity inspired many original songs, fan art and internet memes,[13][16][30] Willard expressed that fan-created content "really is the best part" of making Among Us, and Bromander called it "my favorite thing to see".[30] The game popularized the slang word "sus" (meaning "suspicious" or "suspect"),[80][81][82] which had been used before the game's release.[83] Other slang terms as well as internet memes popularized and inspired by Among Us include "sussy" and "sussy baka" (derived from "sus"),[84] "when the imposter is sus" (an ironic meme based on Among Us, usually alongside an edited photo of Jerma985),[85] and "amogus" (a satiric misspelling of "Among Us").[86] In addition, the meme "Among Us everywhere" is a phenomenon where unexpected objects resemble the crewmate character.[87] In September 2022, "sus" was added to Merriam-Webster's dictionary.[88] During its time of widespread popularity, Among Us was controversially played by the U.S. Navy Esports team, in which players on the stream used in-game names referencing the N-word ("Gamer Word") and the bombing of Nagasaki ("Japan 1945" and "Nagasaki"). The stream was deemed "offensive" and "intolerable" by some viewers.[89] The sailor responsible for the stream was later kicked off the team.[90] In October 2020, U.S. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar streamed the game alongside several other prominent streamers such as Pokimane and Hasan Piker as a way to encourage people to vote in the 2020 United States presidential election, drawing almost 700,000 concurrent viewers on Twitch.[91][92][93] The game received several mods made by the community, which added roles, game modes, cosmetics, etc.[94] Among Us was featured in Twitch Rivals 2020, an online gaming tournament which was held on December 4, 2020.[95] During the event, players were able to receive an exclusive pet called "Glitch Pet", which is the Twitch logo.[96] In mid-October 2020, a hacker known as "Eris Loris" began targeting mainly North American servers. Several players on the Among Us subreddit and Twitter reported this player hacking their lobbies and spamming in-game chat with promotions for his YouTube channel, links to his Discord server, and controversial political messages.[104] Eris Loris threatened to personally hack players that refused to subscribe to his YouTube channel. The Discord server has been found to contain large amounts of offensive content, such as racist language, gore, pornography, and images depicting animal abuse.[105] A Eurogamer report from October 23, 2020, features an interview with a person claiming to be Eris Loris, conducted via the Discord server from one of the links provided in the hacked games. In the interview, Loris claims he created the bot responsible for the hacks "in only six hours", and had enlisted up to 50 volunteers to form a botnet which boosted the strength of their attacks. Loris claimed that the hack impacted 4.9 million players in 1.5 million games. He added that the hacks were part of a publicity stunt to influence players to vote for Donald Trump in the 2020 United States presidential election.[105] Innersloth added an in-game message warning players about the hacks on October 22,[105] and released a statement on Twitter the next day. They said they were "super aware" of the hacking issue, and stated that an "emergency server update" would be pushed out to combat the hacks. They encouraged players to stick to private games and to avoid playing on public ones until the update was released.[106] The team plans to address the hacking vulnerabilities as part of a planned overhaul for the game.[41] At the end of January 2021, players reported on Twitter the return of Eris Loris' hack attack, who was distributing Among Us cheats.[107] Among Us was well received by critics. On the aggregator website Metacritic, the PC port received a 85 of 100 score based on 9 critic reviews, while the Nintendo Switch version received a 79 of 100 score based on 9 critic reviews, both them indicating "generally favorable reviews".[108][109] It was also considered one of the "Best PC Games for 2018", being ranked 17th, and as the "#38 Best Discussed PC Game of 2018".[117][118] Since December 2020, IGN considered it one of 2020's best reviewed games so far.[119] Elliott Osange of Bonus Stage considered that the game is "silly fun", but felt that is more fun "to be an Impostor".[120] Craig Pearson of Rock, Paper, Shotgun had the same opinion, found playing as an Impostor "a lot more fun" than playing as a Crewmate, which he called "exhausting".[12] In reference to the game's popularity among streamers, Evelyn Lau of The National said: "Watching the reactions of people trying to guess who the imposter is (and sometimes getting it very wrong) or lying terribly about not being the imposter is all quite entertaining."[11] Alice O'Conner of Rock, Paper, Shotgun described the game as "Mafia or Werewolf but with minigames".[121] Andrew Penney of TheGamer said the game was "worth it for the price" and that "who you play with dictates how fun the game is."[122] L'avis de Tiraxa of Jeuxvideo.com praised the game's Freeplay mode, which offers newer players "to browse the map alone to accommodate the places", as they would need to play several games in order to "perfect their strategies".[112] Leana Hafer from IGN stated in her verdict on the game: "I don't have any sus that this will be the last game of its breed to make a splash, since we're already seeing its influence on even mega-games like Fortnite". As a negative point, she pointed out some technical problems, such as the difficulty of finding rooms that aren't already full or are a long way from getting there. She also lamented the lack of "mechanic to punish players who rage-quit when they don't get to play as impostor, or are caught dead to rights in the middle of a murder".[113] Tiraxa of Jeuxvideo.com was more critical of the game, lamenting the lack of an inbuilt voice chat, server bugs which "[prevent] some from joining the party, in a totally unexplained way", public servers with strangers, which she considered "less entertaining" than private servers with friends, and the large development progress, stating that the game has a "bit of a way to go before it reaches its full potential".[112] The mobile version of the game, although being free-to-play, was criticized. Osange of Bonus Stage called the presence of ads and in-app purchases of cosmetic changes that are mostly available for free on the PC version "nonsense". He also called the PC version "stable" but also stated that the Android version is "a device-by-device situation".[120] The Nintendo Switch version received some criticism. William Antonelli of Insider said that the Switch controls give "many tasks a satisfying game response". However, he also stated that most of the tasks could be "done quickly with the Switch's touchscreen control", which can only be used when the console is in handheld mode. He noted that many of the game's tasks are difficult to complete using a gamepad, which is required when the console is connected to a larger screen, and considered this version "inferior" to the PC and mobile versions.[123] He also stated that the communication system is "frustrating", as using the joystick to select letters is "slow", and said the fact that the game has support for multiplayer across multiple platforms gives Switch players "immediate disadvantage".[123] PJ O'Reilly of Nintendo Life noted that the Switch lacked much of the additional content available on other platforms, such as skins, which he called a "shame".[114] Among Us has been frequently compared to Fall Guys, as both became popular as party games during the COVID-19 pandemic;[27][19][124] the developers of both games have positively acknowledged each other on Twitter.[125] Comparisons have also been drawn between the two games' avatars, which have been said to look like jelly beans.[125] Among Us has also been compared to The Thing,[16][126] Town of Salem,[24][126] Werewolves Within,[24] and Secret Hitler.[24]