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Deceive others or find out who's the traitor with up to 9 of your friends or random people

Deceive others or find out who's the traitor with up to 9 of your friends or random people

Vote: (91 votes)

Program license: Free

Developer: InnerSloth LLC

Version: 2024.3.5

Works under: Android

Also available for Windows

Vote:

Program license

(91 votes)

Free

Developer

Version

InnerSloth LLC

2024.3.5

Works under:

Also available for

Android

Windows

Pros

  • Addictive game that requires social strategy
  • Plenty of options to customize your characters
  • Four maps with their own unique hazards and complications

Cons

  • Simplistic graphics won't appeal to everyone
  • Core game experience lacks real mechanical depth

Beneath the bright and basic graphics of Among Us is one of the most deceptively diabolical social deduction games ever created. It's the type of multiplayer game that can make friends turn on friends and severely test how well you know your closest associates. It's fundamentally similar to the party game Werewolf, but the digital wall that prevents you from reading the faces of the other players or even knowing who's controlling which avatar creates a deeper level of dread and uncertainty.

The premise is relatively simple. A group of players are put in one of three environments with an objective of simple survival. Accomplishing a series of tasks will fill up a progress bar and presumably get you out of the dangerous situation you're in. Alternately, you can uncover all of the imposters hidden among your crew. That's where things get more dangerous for everyone involved.

Only a fraction of the crew are imposters, but they can cause a serious amount of damage in a very small amount of time. Even worse, you won't always know how many imposters are in the crew, though there can be as few as one or as many as three. The imposters can win the game by creating parity between the number of imposters and the number of crewmates. To accomplish this, they have a few additional tools at their disposal. The easiest way to take out a crewmate is to kill them. The skill comes with a cooldown and can only be executed from a certain distance, but the biggest risk here is that it leaves a big mess to be discovered.

A more versatile option is to sabotage equipment. Each map comes with its own selection of equipment that can be sabotaged. Some are annoyances that slow down the progress of crewmates, like shutting down the communications system or lights. Other sabotages, like cutting off oxygen or activating a nuclear reactor, will cause an end game event if it's not addressed. Sabotages can serve as a way to end the game, distract players, or cover up murders that have already been committed.

And if they need a way to escape from a tricky situation, imposters can also hide in air vents. Each map has a series of vents that cover varying amounts of the map, and gaining and understanding of the unique vent layout in each map becomes critical to surviving as an imposter. They have security devices as well as suspicious crewmates to worry about, and getting away from a body is the best way to divert attention.

Comparatively, crewmates have few tools at their disposal. But the best defense for crewmates is to talk it through. Any crewmate can use the report skill to call an emergency meeting. Emergency meetings are the only time that characters can interact with each other, and each meeting must end with a crewmate being expelled from the map. The goal of crewmates is to identify the imposters. The goal of imposters is tougher - to turn crewmates against one another. These meetings become a time to place blame, to share evidence, and to potentially make alliances and build strategies. If the crewmates successfully do all of those things, they'll hopefully remove another imposter from the game. Among Us only supports text chat, but many gamers on Twitch are making use of third party voice chat services. It's a strong choice if you're picking up Among Us to play with friends or family.

Unfortunately, emergency meetings can only be called in specific circumstances - either when a body is newly discovered or when a crewmate hits the emergency button. The latter has a limited amount of uses per game, and the crewmate actually needs to make it to the button to use it. Mixing up things is the fact that imposters can also call emergency meetings.

Most of the time, crewmates will be performing rather mundane tasks. These can involve everything from swiping a keycard to fixing a nuclear reactor, but most of them play out as pretty simple mini-games. The most important part aren't the games themselves but rather how they function, since understanding this can make it way easier for characters to pick out imposters. Some tasks are shared, and others show a visual cue that doesn't appear when imposters try to perform the task. The trick for imposters is to appear normal, understand the patterns or other players, and find your opportunities to strike.

The trick for crewmates is to exercise smart suspicion while keeping yourself from looking suspicious. Anything out of the ordinary could falsely identify you as an imposter or at least diminish the value of your word during an emergency meeting. As such, a balance needs to be found between filling up the task bar to win the game, keeping an eye out for suspicious activity, and covering your back to avoid putting your life at risk.

Fortunately, death doesn't mean the end. Whether you're an imposter or a crewmate, you can come back as a ghost to assist your team. While they can't vote or murder, ghosts and crewmates can either sabotage or perform tasks. So even when one side is on the ropes, there's potential for your dead teammates to help you turn the tide in the game.

Continuous support on Among Us has been strong as well - especially now that it's taken hold as a big hit among gaming streamers and their fans. Holidays like Halloween, Christmas, and April Fools Day bring with them events that include a huge selection of new hats, pets, and other adornments for dressing up your character. The development team has also been good about steadily releasing more expansive content as well. The single map from the original has been expanded to four, and all of them add new wrinkles to the core experience of Among Us. Best of all, all of the materials that have been released so far have been completely free. As long as the game remains popular, you can expect these kinds of free updates with some level of consistency.

And therein lies the caveat. The social deception at the core of Among Us makes it a great choice for streamers and for virtual parties, but how much continued support this game gets will ultimately come down to its long term popularity. But even if development comes to a halt, you'll still find a solid game with fundamentals that will shine through even after the fad has faded away. If you're looking for a way to stay social without having to meet up in person - and you aren't afraid of losing friends over a bitter virtual betrayal - Among Us is a new standard that you can depend on.

Pros

  • Addictive game that requires social strategy
  • Plenty of options to customize your characters
  • Four maps with their own unique hazards and complications

Cons

  • Simplistic graphics won't appeal to everyone
  • Core game experience lacks real mechanical depth