Among Us makes landfall

The popularization of the indie game in quarantine setting

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Genn Muller

One of the most played games by teens right now is Among Us.

Genn Muller, Staff Writer

The increased boredom of being stuck at home in quarantine has got all us all on edge, but thankfully, there’s substitutes to sitting at home and crying. Since late August, Among Us, a multiplayer game by indie developers Innersloth has had increased popularity. Set in space, Among Us has been on the rise due to the increased boredom of being stuck at home despite its early release in 2018.

Among Us is basically a mafia-esque game, with a cartoony feel despite its dark theme. If you’re a “crewmate”, you have to finish all of  your assigned tasks before the impostor kills everyone and, if you’re an “impostor”, you well… kill everyone. It doesn’t make anything too personal of course, even the dead players have a cartoonish vibe with half a body and a single bone protruding out from them. 

In short it’s all basically the fun of a virtual, crazy, board game night.

There is also, you may have noticed, something especially 2020 almost about Among Us. Its accentuation on manufacture, on blame-shifting and sussing out people, and on detailing other individuals to the authorities is amazingly on point. It’s no wonder how it’s grown in such popularity. It all heavily relates to a lot of the current situations.. Metaphorically of course. 

It’s also impacted and played into a few of our students’ lives that are suffering emotionally/physically with being stuck at home. 

“The only games I’ve been able to play are cross platform games,” sophomore Isaac Logdson said. “After a while, meeting people who dragged me into Among Us really got me into it…and when the game first became popular, I really started getting into it.”

Even though Among Us is basically a party game, it’s helped a lot of students, children, adults, streamers, really everyone, cope with the current state of the world. Everything this year has been chaotic to say the least and small things like this can help tons.

“I think it’s very cool that it’s now popular, it brings a newish style of gameplay and fun with friends…you can’t necessarily see your friends so this is one of the fun things to do now,” sophomore Nathan Chadwell said.