Among Us: the popular game of lies and betrayal
The pandemic caused many people to discover new video games to connect with each other. Let's see what this title consists of .
The game of lies and betrayal has gained popularity around the world in recent days. / Photo: YT / Innersloth
LatinAmerican Post | Ariel Cipolla
Listen to this article
Leer en español: Among Us: el popular juego de mentiras y traiciones
There are several video games of the moment. Despite the enormous success that Fall Guys is having, for example, a title has emerged lately that is giving it competition. According to what the TN website mentions, Among Us seeks to “dethrone it”, being a title that was initially launched in 2018, but that just now exploded in popularity.
It is a videogame that is a real trend today. So much so that the Infobae medium characterizes it as the “fashionable video game to play with friends”, since one of the main characteristics is the fact that it includes other players online. Let's see, then, what it consists of and what are the causes of its great success.
Among Us and its great popularity
Smartphone and computer games are having great success with gamers who want to forget, at least for a moment, about the pandemic. In other words, it is an opportunity to socialize with friends and strangers, this being one of the basic premises of this installment: dialogue.
The IAM Games specialized website characterizes it as an "option for quarantine", being the betrayal game of the season. With a limit of 10 players, this is a simple title, where the crew of a ship must complete various tasks to win the games. However, the interesting thing is that, within the crew, there are one or more alien impostors that infiltrated the ship.
Therefore, different meetings are held to discuss who is the person who is lying, so votes are given to dismiss a member. This same theme allowed Among Us to be seen as a “perfect trend” to stream on Twitch, being one of the most watched games by gamers on the platform, with more than 6 million hours of playback.
This caused even the Manchester City star, Sergio Agüero, to have joined the "fashion game" in his transmissions through the platform, according to what the Depor medium mentions. Through the different maps, it is observed how different corpses appear, where the players have to debate the suspects of the cast.
The really curious thing is that, as the Vida Extra website mentions, this "new phenomenon in the world of video games" has been with us since 2018. Apparently modest, the games are so basic that the dynamics are as simple as collaborating, betraying and generating consensus. That is, squeeze humanity to the maximum extent possible.
Also read: The five most relevant entertainment news of this week
That's a big part of it's success: you have to collaborate with the other crew members and decipher people's lies. Whoever is deceiving the rest will have to sneak out to kill them without being detected by others. Therefore, chatting, manipulations, and truth-telling are really important, because any “bawdyness” or silence could spell suspicion.
In addition to this, much of its success is due to its more casual nature. This also comes hand in hand with the fact that it is a crossplay game (for cell phones or PC), with minimal graphics and few requirements. Even the Enter website mentions that we will only need 250 MB of space, 1 GB of RAM and Windows 7.
So much so that, according to the Yahoo Finance website, the success of this title meant that they are already preparing a sequel. The creators of this independent installment warned that a new version will be released that will seek to be as and even more satisfactory than the first, including news and surprises.
For now, we know that the fact that we are physically distant does not mean that we do not have humanity on the surface. On the contrary, it is all the titles that are based on virtual contact with others that are having the most success, so it will be necessary to see how many thousands of players are added over time.