To think that a simple indie game exploded in popularity and became one of the most popular games of all time is hard, but the game Among Us managed it. I had to call this emergency meeting as I saw (according to Steamcharts,) 438,524 players in September 2020 all playing concurrently, competing with the top games like Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (which is pretty sus).

What Caused Among Us To Be Popular?

Released in June 2018, the game only saw a couple of hundred to a thousand players playing at one time, which sounds like a lot, but compared to your competitors is nothing. It wasn’t until the end of August 2020 when it really began to rise in popularity. In this article, we will target the points that caused this uprising for this video game.

Streamers

Arguably, big twitch streamers began streaming the game which is the biggest argument for the popularity boom. It all makes sense, your favourite streamer played the game, you wanted to play the game, it’s basically free promotion. On top of that, streamers and content creators began playing together and many collaborations that viewers finally wanted happened (like KSI & PewDiePie).

Viewer numbers on Twitch can be misleading to determine a game’s true popularity, a good example is Valorant and its beta drops, but Among Us is different. With Among Us, you can tell that everyone watching is genuine.

COVID-19

Another big point to why so many players are playing this game right now is COVID-19, the lockdowns and isolation. You see, when people are having to isolate or be locked down, many turn to gaming as a pass time and because so many people are doing so, it doesn’t appear to be as difficult to get a group of players or friends to have a laugh.

Among Us has become a hilarious option to escape from the year that is 2020.

Easy To Learn, Easy To Play

For a third reason on the Among Us’ popularity boom has to be the gameplay. I don’t have to mention the simplistic style of the game that any age can play, but the core mechanics of the game have purpose.

As a ‘Crewmate’, you have to complete tasks, causing you to potentially split away from the group and allowing the impostor to make a move. The tasks for crewmates are very simple, and within a game or two on either side, you already understand the basics for the mechanics.

As an ‘Impostor’, your job is to kill your fellow crewmates, get away with it and outnumber them before they can complete their tasks. You are able to vent in areas around the map to help navigate quickly.

Mobile Game

Something that makes the game have a huge audience and ties to a previous point is the fact that you can play on mobile, for free! Mobile Among Us is free and can play cross platform with PC, meaning you can play with friends just about anywhere. This is a great addition for multiplayer gaming

Furthermore, it increases the reach for Among Us even more by being one of the top games on the Google Play Store and IOS App Store. So in reality, there are more than 440,000 players playing at once!

Among Us has become a titan in today’s gaming, proving no matter the basicness of your game, you can still conquer the top games like Dota and CS:GO.