Trend of the Fall: Among Us

Among Us is a popular video game with a social element that occupied students during the Fall semester.

Among Us is an online multiplayer game that many MacArthur students are playing. Players can play on a mobile device or a laptop/PC. Among Us came out on June 15, 2018 and got popular in the year 2020. The game developers are an American game studio called InnerSloth.

In the game, there are two roles to play, crewmates or imposters. There are 10 people that can be in each match, and social interaction is important for the game to work.  

When players are playing as a crewmate, the objective is to figure out who the imposter is and to complete tasks.  The important part moment of the crewmates game occurs in the meeting phase.  When someone gets killed and a teammate finds the body, it is reported.  It takes all the players to the meeting table and the crewmates have to try to figure out who the imposters are by typing into the chat.  

Aside from reporting a dead body, crewmates can call an emergency meeting if there is some suspicious activity to report.  In the meeting itself, the crewmate who called the meeting may make accusations or report what he/she saw to the rest of the group.  Each meeting ends in a vote.  If a majority is achieved, that person is voted off the map. 

When playing as an imposter, the job is to kill the crewmates and to make sure they don’t finish all their tasks.  If the crewmates finish all their tasks, the crewmates will win and the imposters will lose.

Imposters can do anything a crewmate can do except tasks only crewmates can do tasks.  When playing as an imposter, players have to fake doing tasks.  To fake doing tasks, players stand in front of the task that crewmates can do, stand in front of the task for the appropriate time.  The trick is to make it look reasonable.

The additional abilities imposters have include hiding in vents, sabotaging systems, and killing crewmates.  Imposters also get to participate in the meetings, too.  They can defend themselves or misdirect suspicion onto other players.

There are three different map options, “The Skeld”, “Mirahq”, and “Polus”.  To get into a match, players can host a match, join a public one someone made, or get a code from friends to join a private match.