Among Us is an online multiplayer game developed by Innersloth from 2018 that over the past few years has gone viral seemingly out of nowhere. In 2020 this little known game became one of the most played games on almost all platforms, skyrocketing in popularity as an easy game to play during the various lockdown situations internationally.
The game is a digital variation on the games ‘werewolf’ (you may know this by other names colloquially), in which one person is the murderer and everyone else has to vote for who they think the murderer is over a series of turn. Among us has you play as the crew of a space ship undergoing very simple tasks while you keep an eye out for a player or two out of the ordinary, either committing crimes or being ‘sus’ by not properly carrying out their tasks. The game is simple to pick up and there isn’t really much mastery to it, but it does give a group of friends a good time.
Visually, Among Us utilises a 2D cartoonish, smooth and blobish style that is matches the simple nature of the game, the player models have also become iconic despite their simplicity becoming a meme online. the visuals are nice although not amazing but they are only really there for visual representation while you communicate with other players.
The Gameplay is simple and anybody of any age can pick it up very quickly, this has led to it becoming vastly popular with school age children much to many parent and teacher’s bemusement.
The game has no narrative or plot so to speak beyond there being a murderer on the spaceship that you have to find. the atmosphere of the game however has been one of great fun but can also create an adversarial atmosphere amongst players, but this is much to it’s advantage, allowing players to very much get immersed in defending themselves (even when they are the murderer).
Overall, Among Us was a huge hit in a time when it was desperately needed for some group fun online. It has since decreased in popularity, however I believe it will be a staple of the multiplayer online party game scene for some time to come.
Overall Score: 6
Terabyte 