Among Us, a video game developed by Innersloth resembling the party game Mafia, has recently gained traction worldwide. Since September, Among Us has led Apple’s App Store in downloads by a large margin (even more than apps like Zoom!).

The premise of the game is very similar to most other murder mystery-type games; there are two roles you can be assigned, crewmate or imposter. The crewmates are supposed to explore the ship, complete their assigned tasks, and try to figure out who the imposters are. The imposter’s goal is to sabotage the ship and kill the crewmates before they finish all of their tasks.

Among Us is a title that has actually been around since June of 2018, but has only recently garnered attention due to the COVID-19 lockdown. The game first became popular when Twitch streamer “Sodapoppin” played it with his friends during a live stream earlier this year. Other large content creators on Twitch and Youtube began to play the game, and it spread like wildfire.

The game has even grown outside of the younger community, and into the broader population. Various celebrities such as Soulja Boy, James Charles, and representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Illhan Omar have dabbled in the game recently.

While many people first saw the game from their favorite online content creators, others discovered it through different outlets. Zion Todd ‘22 first heard about the game through his friends: “it looked fun even though I was bad at first,” he says. 

Alternatively, TJ Hampton ‘22 first heard about the game through the social media platform TikTok, but he still agrees, saying “I thought it was a fun, lighthearted game to play with friends”.

The coronavirus has caused people to stay indoors and use their phones much more, which subsequently caused a large increase in mobile game popularity. As a party game that can be played with 5-10 people and completely free, Among Us was bound for success. 

The game is also available on PC, costing $5 dollars. You may ask yourself “why would I spend $5 to buy a game that I can get for free on my phone?” Well, if you’re interested in your character’s design, then paying the $5 allows you to access more cosmetics to apply to your in-game character. This is how Innersloth earned a lot of the $4,000,000+  generated by the game in the last few months. And because the game was only developed by the 4 employees at Innersloth, they all are walking home with more than $1,000,000 each. 
Among Us is an excellent way for teens around the world to interact with their friends. If your friends are not available to play, there are always public lobbies where you can play with random people near you. Playing in public lobbies is another way to meet new friends and have fun with new people during a time where access to day-to-day friends is a privilege. However, some of these random people might not be your new “friends.” As Lita Porter ‘23 puts it, “they can be really really annoying.”