In 2020, with multiple lockdowns around the world, millions of players fell in love with "Among Us", an online game that is as simple as it is malicious.
Now the most popular game in the world, it appeals to groups of friends separated by health constraints thanks to its strategic games and the dissensions it creates.
DECRYPTION
Video games are indeed the king of the hobby of the Covid pandemic.
Since the appearance of the virus and thanks to the multiple lockdowns around the world, they have never been so popular: more players, more hours of play and ever crazier figures.
While we thought Fortnite unbeatable with its 350 million players, the king of "Battle Royale" is no longer the most popular game in the world.
In recent months,
Among Us
, the new darling of the web, has brought together ... 500 million players!
A success as crazy as it is sudden which should last in 2021 as this little game is adapted to parties during a pandemic.
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A simple game conducive to strategies
The concept of
Among Us
is very simple and is similar to the board game "Le loup-garou de Thiercelieu".
It is played online, with 4 to 10 players, represented by small customizable characters and placed in a spaceship.
Among the crew, there are 1 to 3 impostors, drawn at the start of the game, whose goal is to kill everyone without being noticed.
The so-called "innocent" players must perform maintenance tasks on the ship and unmask the impostors before they are all killed.
This is all done in silence, no player is allowed to speak, until someone reports a dead body.
An emergency meeting is then triggered and the debate opens between all the players, except the dead.
If the concept is simple, it does not exclude the implementation of strategies.
Impostors can thus pretend to perform tasks to try to appear less suspicious or sabotage the ship to force the players to concentrate on an urgent mission and take advantage of it to commit their crimes.
But they are also limited since at the start of the game and after a murder, impostors must wait 45 seconds before they can kill again.
For their part, the "innocent" can monitor the movements of players in the camera room to try to identify impostors, the only characters who can move in the ventilation ducts.
Perfect set for containment or curfew
But where
Among Us
gets absolutely awesome is during the reunion phases.
They can be requested at any time by anyone, or triggered when someone reports a dead body.
Players are then invited to vote for those they think are the impostors.
Everyone is free to present their arguments and the others to believe it or not.
At the end of a count, whoever receives the most votes is thrown from the ship.
And that spawns a whole bunch of cunning strategies.
An impostor may very well provoke a meeting to muddy the waters.
If he is eloquent enough, he can manage to eject an innocent person and thus get closer to victory.
This operation makes
Among Us
the perfect game for parties with friends, especially when one is confined or forced to stay at home due to a curfew.
Designed for remote play, it allows you to keep in touch with your friends, or rather what will be left of them after a few games.
Indeed, prepare yourself for some betrayals and many heated debates to defend your honor, you the little innocent accused wrongly (but is it really the case?).
All this contributes to the crazy popularity of the title, also well helped by its ease of access: it is free on smartphones, and costs only four euros on PC and Nintendo Switch.
Exponential success on Twitch
The success of
Among Us
is all the crazier since a year ago no one had heard of it.
The game was created in 2018 by InnerSloth, an independent American studio, first on smartphone, then on PC.
Except that at the time it was a flop.
Nobody, or almost, played it and it vegetated in the depths of the rankings of online game stores.
But the developers did not give up, they continued to release updates and improve the game. Gradually, it gained notoriety first in South Korea, then in Brazil.
Ultimately, it was the Covid that shone the spotlight on
Among Us
. With the lockdowns, the very popular streamers on Twitch have been looking for games to occupy themselves. One of them, Sodapoppin, followed by 6 million people, performed live in July, the starting point for the title's exponential growth. In a few weeks, the game has been around the world. Even celebrities like US MP Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Formula 1 driver Romain Grosjean have taken to playing live, imitated by millions of anonymous. As long as the pandemic lasts, the popularity of
Among Us
is not about to wane.