The Rise of Among Us

Among Us, a multiplayer game by InnerSloth was released more than two years ago in June 2018. It didn’t particularly ‘rise’ to popularity, It had less than 100 daily players in 2018 according to IGN. But in times of COVID, multiplayer games and streamer viewership raised, games like Fall Guys, Valorant became more popular, and so did Among Us.

Twitch Streamer named ‘Sodapoppin’ is believed to have brought the game where it is, by streaming it to thousands of people first. Later on, it was played by top Twitch streamers like xQc, Pokimane, and later PewDiePie.

The game is not about better graphics, we’ve seen in Fall Guys that better graphics don’t matter if you just want to have fun with your friends, but in this social deduction game, it’s all about lying or convincing about the truth. It’s about strategy, trust, and betrayal. Literally. Most people play it via Discord so they have voice chat when the in-game meeting takes place. Otherwise, the rules of the game are not to speak while playing. And if a player is dead or voted off he is to be muted.

It is no doubt that the major reason for the popularity of the game is the pandemic. The lockdown and quarantine has encouraged many of us to go online, for meetings, calls, and surely gaming. Even if Among Us is a game about deception and killing, it is not heavily tense and is an uncompetitive experience as it doesn’t have a ranking system and is just for fun.

InnderSloth, the developer studio of Among Us planned a sequel to the game but later on cancelled it saying they will try to improve the game more and develop it rather than launching ‘Among Us 2’.