Among Us — The Spaceship Mafia Game That Took Over the World
The story behind Innersloth's Among Us, how Crewmates and Impostors play, why it exploded in 2020, its 3D and animated spin-offs, and how to play it today.
Among Us is an online multiplayer social deduction game released in 2018 by Innersloth, a small American game studio. Among a group of cute astronauts gathered on a spaceship or base, a few are secretly "Impostors" hiding their identity, while the rest must do their jobs and find the culprits. The rules are simple, but what ultimately decides the outcome is the conversation and lying between people.
The game drew almost no attention at launch, then suddenly became a worldwide hit through streamers and YouTubers during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. In this post, we cover how Among Us was made, how it plays, why its success came so late, how it later expanded into a 3D version and an animated series, and how to get started now.
At a Glance
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Release | June 2018 (iOS, Android), November 16, 2018 (Windows, Steam) |
| Developer | Innersloth (USA) |
| Platforms | iOS, Android, Windows, Nintendo Switch (December 2020), PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S (December 2021) |
| Genre | Online multiplayer social deduction |
Origins
Among Us was inspired by the party game "Mafia" and the sci-fi horror film The Thing. The idea came from Innersloth co-founder Marcus Bromander, who had enjoyed playing Mafia since childhood. Instead of wandering around a house as in the original party game, the team moved the setting to space and added "tasks" for players to do.
Development began in November 2017. The initial plan was a mobile-only game played together on phones by people in the same room, with just one map. Bromander paused work on Innersloth's other title, The Henry Stickmin Collection, to build the first map, "The Skeld." Early on, the ship was always in a state of crisis and Impostors could also do tasks, but the team decided this was too tense and left too little time for deduction and discussion, so they changed it. The game was built with the Unity engine.
Right after its June 2018 launch on Android and iOS, the game had only around 30 to 50 concurrent players. Bromander later attributed this to the company being bad at marketing. The team nearly abandoned development several times, but thanks to a small, devoted player base they kept adding online multiplayer, new tasks, and customization, and released it on Steam on November 16 of the same year with cross-platform play. A second map, MIRA HQ, followed in August 2019, and a third, Polus, in November.
How It Plays
Each match has 4 to 15 players. Depending on the player count and the host's settings, up to three players are randomly and secretly chosen as Impostors.
Crewmates and Impostors
Crewmates complete tasks across the map in the form of short minigames, such as fixing wiring or downloading data. Crewmates win by finishing all tasks or by ejecting every Impostor. Impostors look exactly like Crewmates, so they blend in while pretending to do tasks, then take down Crewmates when the chance arises. They can move quickly through vents and scatter the crew with sabotage, such as cutting the lights or breaking the oxygen system. Impostors win by reducing the number of Crewmates to equal the number of Impostors, or by preventing a critical sabotage from being fixed in time.
Meetings and Voting
When someone reports a body or presses the emergency meeting button, everyone gathers to discuss. Players talk about who was where and who they saw doing tasks, while Impostors lie to avoid suspicion or frame others. The player with the most votes is "ejected" from the ship. Players who are killed or ejected become ghosts and can keep doing remaining tasks or sabotage. Devices such as security cameras and vitals, as well as "visual tasks" that show outwardly when done in front of others, serve as clues to prove innocence.
More Roles and Modes
A November 2021 update added special roles such as Engineer, Scientist, Guardian Angel, and Shapeshifter, and more roles have been added steadily since. In December 2022, a "Hide n Seek" mode arrived, in which players avoid a single revealed Impostor without any meetings. There are five maps: The Skeld, MIRA HQ, Polus, the Airship taken from the Henry Stickmin series, and The Fungle, a mushroom jungle map.
Why It's a Classic
The strength of Among Us lies in what the game doesn't decide for you. The framework of tasks and voting is simple, but the real contest is the psychological battle between people over whose words to trust. That's why the same map with the same rules becomes a completely different match when the people you play with change. Critics praised its fun and enjoyable gameplay, and it's often named one of the best mobile games of all time.
The story of its late-blooming popularity also makes the game special. According to developer Forest Willard, Twitch streamer Sodapoppin sparked its popularity by streaming it in July 2020, and many well-known streamers and YouTubers followed. It passed 100 million downloads in September 2020, and concurrent players peaked at 3.8 million at the end of that month. Market research firm SuperData Research estimated about 500 million players worldwide as of November 2020. Ahead of the US presidential election that year, when Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar streamed the game to encourage voting, nearly 700,000 viewers watched concurrently on Twitch.
Innersloth stuck with the game long past the point where, from a purely business standpoint, it should have quit, and kept polishing it steadily, at one point updating it every week. People often point out that the small team's process of refining the game in response to players eventually led to its huge success. A free mobile version, an inexpensive PC version, and cross-platform play also made it easy for friends to gather on whatever devices they owned.
Series and Influence
In August 2020, as its popularity exploded, Innersloth began developing a sequel, Among Us 2. But on September 23, the studio announced it was canceling the sequel to focus on overhauling the original game's aging code. Account systems, reporting features, Quick Chat (which allows only preset phrases), and a friends feature were added in turn.
Its reach also extended beyond the game itself. Among Us VR, a virtual reality game, was announced at The Game Awards 2021, and in 2025 it was renamed Among Us 3D and released on Steam on May 6 alongside a version playable without VR. It offers the same rules from a first-person view. An animated series produced by CBS Studios premiered on Paramount+ on June 5, 2026, and in the same month the spin-off Among Us Stories: On Guard was announced at Summer Game Fest. The Crewmate character became the subject of countless internet memes and has appeared as a parody in many games and comics.
How to Play Today
On phones, you can download it for free on iOS and Android and start right away. On PC it's available on Steam, and on consoles on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox; players on different devices can join the same lobby. If you want to play in first person, Among Us 3D is another option.
If you're new, we recommend making a lobby with people you know. Public lobbies with strangers are fun too, but the fun of deduction and deception grows much bigger when you play with friends who know each other's speech habits and quirks. Users under 13 are set to use Quick Chat with preset phrases only, which is worth knowing when playing with kids. Each map has different surveillance devices and shortcuts, so focusing on learning the map layout as a Crewmate for your first few matches will help you get comfortable quickly.