Amidst COVID-19, "Among Us" has provided a platform to connect with others

Kellen Woodcock ‘21

A player in an "Among Us" game. Photo by Kellen Woodcock.

"Among Us" is for people to connect with one another - in big and small ways.

At its core, the online party game is quite simple. There are 10 people aboard a spaceship, but two of them are imposters. The eight crewmates have to complete tasks to fill up a taskbar while the imposters are trying to kill crewmates and sabotage parts of the ship. It’s essentially the classic in-person party game Mafia, taken online and into space.

The game was released by Innersloth Studios, a small three-person team out of Redmond, Washington, and is available on Steam, Google Play, and the app store, costing $4.99 on Steam while being free on mobile devices. 

Since September, "Among Us" has been gaining massive popularity, currently averaging 197,000 concurrent players on Steam over the past 30 days, up from just 2,100 in July. And that’s excluding mobile players.

Dylan Lian, a senior at Catlin Gabel (CGS), started playing "Among Us" with a group of friends in September and has kept playing since. 

“What’s better than lying to your friends?” Lian joked. “I’m kidding, but it’s great. You can try and figure out if your friends are lying, and how well you really know them. It’s really engaging.”

The engaging nature of the game, coupled with the game mechanics that he described as “not hard to learn,” makes for a game that’s easy to pick up, accessible to most, and fun to play with friends, which creates a great way to stay connected during a time where it’s especially difficult to engage with others. 

Lian also highlighted that hopping on a call with friends “is a great way to bond and learn from each other,” while also keeping it loose and fun, with the game being “all jokes and not taken seriously.”

Not only has "Among Us" helped keep the senior class connected with one another, it has also provided politicians a way to connect with younger audiences. On Oct. 20, at 9 p.m. EST, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went live on Twitch, a video game livestreaming platform, and played "Among Us" with fellow congresswoman Rep. Ilhan Omar, and other Twitch streamers such as Pokimane and Dr. Lupo. The stream peaked at over 430,000 concurrent viewers, making it one of the most viewed streams by an individual of all time on Twitch.

Ocasio-Cortez encouraged people watching to make voting plans and vote and shared hopes that the U.S. would get “back on track.” Although there was some backlash to the stream, the response was overwhelmingly positive, with Politico’s Zach Montellaro saying that it was “probably going to be the single-largest event to reach young voters.” 

Current CGS Middle School teacher Zale Clay said that stream felt “like a breakthrough in terms of how you relate to voters, how you get voters registered, and how you galvanize support.”

Lian thought it was great that Ocasio-Cortez “showed the people that you’re willing to connect with them,” and explained that people want to see politicians participating in “things that normal people are doing.”

Ocasio-Cortez also inspired Clay to try out the game with some of his students.

“I hadn’t played it before AOC livestreamed it, but I’d heard about the game and was curious about it,” said Clay. While he was talking to one of his classes, he mentioned the stream and “it ended up that most of my students had seen the stream and were already playing the game.” After seeing this, Clay “threw down the gauntlet to my C&C,” and discovered “most of the class very enthusiastically wanted to be a part of the game”.

Clay also noted that with the ongoing pandemic, “teachers and students alike are looking for different ways of connecting right now,” saying "Among Us" is a “really fun social platform.” 

Similarly to Lian, Clay liked the mischievous nature of the game, going as far as to say that he thought some of the appeal of the game was that it “allows you to be far more devious than you might otherwise be in real life and play the role of the villain.”

From seniors with their classmates, politicians with young voters, and teachers with their students, "Among Us" has provided a platform that fosters connections between groups of people during a time where social interaction is limited and connections can be hard to come by.

As Lian said, “It’s a great way to relax the mind and vibe with some friends.”