Among Us: 15 Person Lobbies are Good, but They're Not What The Game Needs
Most people would probably agree that Among Us had a huge impact on the game industry in 2020. Nobody expected a small indie game from 2018 to suddenly become the most popular game on Twitch, but against all odds, that's what happened. Among Us proved to be the perfect gaming sensation in a year where everyone was in desperate need for simple but engaging online games. Although Among Us had a few really strong months, it's fallen out of favor with Twitch streamers a little bit, and a lot of its player base has moved on to greener pastures. Now it's up to Innersloth to think of ways to help Among Us find some longevity.
There's one good update on the way that'll help instill some more life in Among Us. For a long time, fans have been asking for lobbies bigger than 10 players, and Innersloth is listening. The next big Among Us update will expand the lobby cap to 15 players, making for much busier and likely more chaotic Among Us games. While that should inject a good bit of extra interest in Among Us, it doesn't seem like enough to actually help the game stay relevant. Innersloth needs to learn from what's helped extend Among Us' widespread popularity by many months: fan-made mods.
Fans have come up with some pretty fascinating ways to improve Among Us, one of them being proximity voice chat. While traditionally players can only talk during emergency meetings, proximity chat adds a layer of strategy by letting players talk in-game, but only with the players they're close to on the map. That audio component totally changes the approach Impostors have to take to eliminating Crewmates.
A much broader category of Among Us mods are those that add new player classes to the game. Anything from a Sherriff to a Jester is on the table thanks to player-made mods. The breadth of abilities that each class has to offer is another fantastic way to add more strategy and complexity to a very simple game.
Although proximity chat and new classes are very different mods, they both boil down to the same desire in players. Among Us fans are looking for fundamentally different ways to play the game. They're experimenting with Innersloth's formula and seeing how they can stick within the core tenets of Among Us, while still creating a completely new game experience. Players still like Among Us, but they want to play it in a different way. Innersloth needs to be aware of the options players are creating for themselves.
Admittedly, Innersloth's most recent comments on where Among Us is going don't bode too well in terms of the groundbreaking changes to the game. For instance, Innersloth has started revealing new Crewmate colors like Rose that'll make 15 person Among Us lobbies possible. While new colors are nice, they're ultimately not very impactful on the game. The same goes for the bigger lobbies. Among Us will certainly get a lot harder in a lobby of that size, but it's still going to boil down to the same gameplay pattern. It won't ask the same level of player innovation that the mods do.
If there's anything that should inspire some hope for big changes in Among Us fans, it's probably the Airship map. The Airship is a big and bold map with a lot of creative, complicated new tasks and environmental obstacles. It showed that Innersloth isn't afraid to take risks and try new things in Among Us. That needs to become a pattern. If Innersloth wants to keep fans playing Among Us, it needs to innovate and try new things with the game, whether it's built-in optional classes or new gamemodes. Among Us was a great discovery in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, but if it wants to stay popular, it has to adapt to survive.
Among Us is available now on PC, Mobile, and Switch. Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S versions will release in 2021, and PS4 and PS5 versions are in development.
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