Developer InnerSloth has explained why its popular online multiplayer game Among Us isn't on consoles like PlayStation 4 or Xbox One yet. The biggest hurdle in the studio's way is apparently player communication. According to studio programmer Forest Willard--who played Among us with a bunch of Twitch streamers earlier this week, including 5uppp--figuring out how to implement player communication in a game that's largely text-based chat might prove difficult when porting Among Us to consoles.
"[A console port] is something we're starting to talk about," Willard said. "But we'd have to write a system for quick comms. It'd basically be for randoms, like Rocket League. I don't know if we'd be able to implement console voice chat or not. I know one of the first things we want to add is a friend's list-type account system because it's real hard to do anything without that s***."
Among Us currently doesn't feature any sort of built-in voice chat tools. If players want to speak to each other in a lobby, they must either pull up the game's chatroom or jump to a separate app like Discord. This isn't as much a problem as is devising a way for people who prefer to not use voice chat but still want to communicate with the other players. In this scenario, Inverse reports, players would have to use a mouse and keyboard on both systems, which is possible but cumbersome.
Otherwise, the only other solution is for InnerSloth to develop an entirely new communication system for console players. It's unclear if the studio is currently working on it, though the comments sound as if InnerSloth is, at the very least, presently considering the idea and weighing the options.
Among Us is available on Android, iOS, and PC. The game is soaring in popularity, too, amassing more than 85 million downloads on mobile devices and reaching top view and player counts on Steam and Twitch.
Among Us Is Really, Really Popular Right Now
Indie game Among Us has exploded in popularity recently. According to SensorTower, Among Us earned 18.4 million mobile downloads in August, almost eight times as many downloads from its July count of 2.4 million downloads. The game earned another 41.9 million mobile downloads in September, proving its meteoric growth in the last two months. On Steam, Among Us is also one of the most popular games on the platform, and 268,000 players are currently active.
Among Us was released in 2018 by InnerSloth and is a multiplayer party game. Four to ten players take on the role of spaceship crew members preparing for a departure. However, a few players in the party are randomly assigned the role of alien imposters. The imposters' goals are to kill and frame crewmembers, sabotage the ship, and do it all without getting caught. Among Us shares a similar setup to other popular real-life party games like Werewolf and Mafia.
Twitch streamers have generally been attributed for spreading the good word about Among Us. The multiplayer party game is highly popular on the platform and as a category, has 247,000 viewers, which places it ahead of other popular titles like Fortnite and Minecraft. Popular Twitch personalities like Sodapoppin, Pewdiepie, Shroud, Ninja, and many more have played the multiplayer party game.
We can also thank Among Us memes that have flooded Twitter and Reddit for making the internet curious about the party game.
InnerSloth also announced that Among Us 2 is in the works, but the team has not set a release date yet. The company stated that its goal is to build a sequel that can withstand growth, since due to the way the current Among Us is made, it's "extremely hard to add more things without breaking existing things." Among Us 2 will also keep the core gameplay of crewmates versus imposters, but the developers plan to tweak team balances, improve matchmaking, and add more moderation. They also hope to add new roles, but can't confirm any at this time.
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