Among Us Player Count Skyrockets After Epic Games Giveaway
Among Us took the gaming world by storm last year. The once-obscure 2018 multiplayer social deduction game became a global sensation seemingly overnight. And while the game’s popularity seemed to have peaked, a recent spike in players shows that Among Us still has time left in the spotlight.
Following a weekly giveaway on the Epic Games Store, Among Us more than quintupled its number of daily players. Two million players logged in on Saturday, May 29th, compared to around 350,000 the previous Saturday.
There were multiple reasons for this massive spike, the free giveaway on the Epic Games Store being just one of them. The game’s community manager Victoria Tran addressed some of them in a pair of tweets on Monday. As American readers know, it was Memorial Day weekend in the US. The three-day weekend gave many American players extra time to try the game out. She also pointed out that not all the “new” players were necessarily new people. Some players like to try Among Us on multiple platforms to see which they like best. The giveaway offered an extra incentive to do so on PC.
Still, two million in a day is an important milestone. Even if not all of them were new players, a significant percentage likely were. While Among Us usually sees more players over the weekend, Saturday’s spike was of hugely impressive proportions. While it is unlikely the game can retain those numbers for long, it suggests that Among Us is far from going out of fashion.
Developed by Innersloth on the Unity game engine, Among Us has always been something of a sleeper hit. Inspired by hidden role party games and classic science fiction horror films, it launched in 2018 to an initially lukewarm reception. It did not hit the mainstream until gaining the attention of South Korean and Brazilian online content creators. It subsequently took off on Twitch, becoming a global phenomenon as COVID-19 pushed millions of players indoors.
At its peak popularity, the game saw over 438,000 concurrent players on Steam in late August 2020. The game’s player base has been declining over the last several months, though it’s still far from unpopular. Saturday’s spike indicates Among Us may still have a successful future ahead of it.
Last September, Innersloth canceled plans for a sequel, instead choosing to continue Among Us’ active development. Planned features were instead folded into Among Us, with the game’s code receiving a significant overhaul to accommodate the new content. Only time will tell if that proves to be the right decision, but it seems to be paying off so far.
Among Us is available now for mobile and PC.
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