Imagine a game where you and nine of your friends run around a spacecraft. Two of you are imposters with the single goal of eliminating everyone else by any means necessary. Killing, betrayal, misdirection, and sometimes just plain lying are all at your disposal as you try to blend in until the very last moment. This is Among Us, and it’s nothing short of an incredible gaming experience.
Though Among Us is played via Steam or your mobile device, it is in large part a social game. The gameplay consists of muting your microphone, a handful of minions, and running around completing menial tasks.
The real fun begins in the discussion room. If a body is found or someone decided to initiate an emergency meeting. Then, after activating your microphone the real fun begins, making the most of psychological tricks and warfare.
At the end of each meeting, there is a chance that one person will be voted off the ship. If the number of imposters ever equals the number of innocent crewmates, the imposters win. If the crewmates can root out and rid the ships of all the imposters OR finish each task, they win.
Believe me, it’s a load of fun. Just check out the chaos and hilarity of this game from popular streamer H2ODelrious.
Not just H2ODelirious, though. Pewdiepie is the unofficial king of Youtube, with over 100 million subscribers, and has joined the craze. The unofficial king of Twitch, who also recently returned to the platform, Ninja is playing.
Among Us has garnered support from other popular streamers like Pokimane and Loserfruit. Even eSport standouts like TFue and Myth are playing!
It doesn’t end there. I’m willing to bet your favorite streamer has played a round of Among Us in the past month. So without further ado, let’s get into what I would like to see in Among Us 2!
More Crewmates!
First things first. The developers admitted that they miscalculated the correct balance between imposters and crewmates. A game of 10 crewmates is best played with 2 imposters. 3 is ludicrous.
Easy fix. Increase the number of total crewmates to 15. The developer said they are considering between 12 and 15 but the higher number will keep the same ratio of 5:1 crewmates to imposters.
Defined Presets and Play Modes
For those of you that don’t know about the unofficial Hide-n-Seek game mode, you are missing out! Ramp up the movement speed and reduce the kill cooldown and see which of the crewmates can survive the longest. Best played with only 1 imposter this mode is equally frantic and fun.
Among Us 2 should do a better job of helping players achieve alternate play modes. Additionally, it should provide predefined settings to help players go from “easy” to “hard” mode.
Lowering the vision or increasing the number of tasks could help players find their balance. The devs should also allow for the saving and sharing of settings into a few buckets to create a great community experience.
Diverse Tasks
The tasks in Among Us are pretty solid as-is. Some are simple while others take a bit longer. Then there’s the Start Reactor (Better known as Simon Says) task that everyone hates.
Personally I despise the Open Waterways task on Polus more than anything. The screeching sound sometimes makes my skin crawl.
One idea I would like explored, especially with a potential player base of 15, is joint tasks. Project Winter a slightly more involved imposter game that has this feature. 2 -3 people are needed to open a particular point of interest. This would open up additional ways for imposters to play the long game.
Customization
Another obvious addition is the expansion of customization options for your crewmate. I’m sure the developers are already going to take this much further but here are some specific recommendations:
- Beyond the color of your crewmate, allow for combinations and patterns. Fall Guys is doing a great job of this. Based on the success of the game you can start to incorporate trademarked characters.
- Give us an ability to save a handful of presets to better match your mood for your gaming session.
- Your customization should extend to all phases of life. Customize your ghost, your death pile, and even your killing animations. And don’t forget about the mini-me or pet!
Emotes and Quick Chat
I’m not sure if this would be too game-changing, but having an ability to send some sort of communication to other crewmates would be interesting. The main reason I mention this is to avoid the wiggling to get the attention of your crewmates to watch you do a task. I think a happy medium would be some sort of Minion-esque language that you and your group of friends can better define.
Additional Roles?
This idea is from the developers. They want to explore other imposter-styled games roles that open up more possibilities besides simply good and bad.
Popular tabletop games like Avalon or Werewolf have such roles. One is an all-knowing role where the player knows all the good and bad people. To level the playing field, if the imposters are able to guess who that is, the imposters win. There’s also a role that can aide or heal others.
Whatever the role, this could greatly change the dynamic of the game and increase replayability tenfold. For more ideas check out some of these additional roles for Werewolf.
Map Maker
I saved the best for last. While the world is getting a wave of Among Us, I’ve been playing since the Spring. Still, rather new to the game I haven’t felt any of the 3 current maps have gotten stale.
There is so much potential variety amongst the people you play with, who is the imposter, the map, and everyone’s playstyle. I can’t imagine getting tired of this game without any changes to the base mechanics.
But!
To take the sequel to a level of infinite replayability, we’d need to include some sort of level maker or generator. In any whimsical game, I typically want a level maker. I asked for it in ToeJam & Earl. Mario Maker 1 and 2 are a perfect example of how you can create an entire game off allowing the community to build content.
Among Us 2 should do the work upfront to build an engine to craft your own map that can be shared with the community. Giving us a system to drag and drop room pieces, tasks, meeting rooms, vents, etc. could only result in greatness. Uploading and sharing with the world to get rated and commented on would bring us all together and elevate the best to the forefront.
Having this would also allow the developers to not feel the pressure of answering “when is the next map coming out?”. There would be virtually unlimited maps to choose from. I can only imagine the masterpieces the internet would produce.
Do the right thing Innersloth!
What would you add?
And that’s it! This is a fairly simple game while somehow maintaining a high level of complexity. Don’t do too much to mess with a winning formula!
What feature(s) do you want to be included in Among Us 2? Let us know in the comments section below!
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