In 2018, the virtual phone game “Among Us” was open to the public for $5 on the gaming app Steam. On its first Steam debut it got over 300,000 players in the first week. Despite its successful release, it wasn’t truly in the spotlight until August of 2020 when everyone was home almost 24/7.
The game “Among Us” is essentially a murder mystery. Players are either assigned the job of a crewmate that requires them to do tasks around the spaceship and find out who the imposter is, or the imposter who goes around killing off crewmates without being seen. During the game there is a maximum of 10 players total and up to three players can be imposters. Crewmates can call emergency meetings to discuss who the imposter is and vote them out of the game. The game ends if the imposter kills everyone, the crewmates finish all tasks, or crewmates vote the imposter out before they kill everyone.
One of the reasons why “Among Us” has gained a recent popularity is because of the attention of Twitch streamers. “Twitch” is a live video streaming site where views join others live streams and watch what they are doing. In this case, viewers began watching streamers play “Among Us”. Multiple famous twitch influencers such as Myth, with over 123 million twitch views, and xQcOW, with over 199 million views, have streamed the now famous game.
One streamer in particular brought the game to the forefront of everyone’s attention and his name is Sliker. Sliker is one of the most famous streamers and attracts the attention of all types of viewers. When he played “Among Us” it got over 2 million streams which then sparked the popularity.
More viewers and streamers started playing the murder mystery game, with other platforms jumping on the bandwagon. Some prominent youtubers, such as Pewdiepie and FGTeev, started using the game for content. With the amount of popularity, the game is receiving, the creators decided to cancel the second update for it.
The streaming services that have been featuring “Among Us” content isn’t the only factor contributing to the game’s newfound popularity. The nationwide quarantine brought on by the COVID-19 virus hit before anyone could really process the pandemic, leaving an empty hole of boredom with many people. With the game “Among Us”, players can interact live with other players and communicate with them in the chat. It gives these quarantine captives real interactions with others without having to leave their homes.
Overall, the game is not only very fun to play with friends and even strangers, but its free and anyone can join. The game is to kill for, but make sure no one is around to report you.
Kate Prentice // Staff Writer
