<h3 id="what39sgoingonwith202039ssurprisehitandwhat39snext">What&#39;s going on with 2020&#39;s surprise hit, and what&#39;s next.</h3>
<p><img src="https://igames.gg/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Among-Us-Image-1.jpg" alt="" /></p>
<p>Among Us was already a couple years old when it was <a href="https://www.pcgamer.com/how-among-us-became-so-popular/">picked up by popular streamers</a> and became one of 2020&#39;s defining games. It&#39;s a simple, though not entirely straightforward, game of social deception with quick rounds, and that turned out to be a brilliant recipe for a year which saw many kids and adults spending more time at home on their phones, desktop PCs, and laptops.</p>
<p>The sudden success of Among Us caught its developers at InnerSloth somewhat off guard. They were working on a sequel, <a href="https://www.pcgamer.com/among-us-2-cancelled-in-favour-of-ongoing-work-on-the-current-game/">Among Us 2, but ended up canceling it</a> to focus on the surprise hit in front of them. Perhaps something was lost when that project ended—who knows what a ground-up rebuild could&#39;ve been like—but the team has been enthusiastic about Among Us&#39;s future, and is working on a new map, as well as some big new features.</p>
<p>Here&#39;s where Among Us stands early in 2021, the year after it became a phenomenon.</p>
<h3 id="what39sbeenhappeningrecently">What&#39;s been happening recently?</h3>
<ul>
<li>The upcoming Airship map <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixfokUG711U&amp;feature=emb_title">was revealed</a> in December</li>
<li>Development of an accounts system also started late last year</li>
<li>Among Us briefly became a major political stage when US representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez streamed the game twice, the second time <a href="https://www.pcgamer.com/canadian-political-leader-invites-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-to-play-among-us-on-twitch/">with Canada&#39;s Jagmeet Singh</a></li>
</ul>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ixfokUG711U" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<h3 id="areplayershappy">Are players happy?</h3>
<p>Among Us blew up <a href="http://store.tcgplayer.com/magic/product/show?ProductName=More%20or%20Less&amp;partner=AUTOANY&amp;affiliate_id=autocard&amp;utm_campaign=affiliate&amp;utm_source=autocard&amp;utm_medium=card">More or Less</a> out of nowhere, and the developers at InnerSloth could only react to that success so quickly. With so many players, cheating and trolling inevitably became the biggest issue—one guy was <a href="https://www.pcgamer.com/among-us-developers-are-trying-to-prevent-a-hack-from-disrupting-games/">filling servers with spam messages</a>—and an account system is on the way to help address the problem. In the meantime, the developer says players can report instances of trolling or hacking directly to support@innersloth.com.</p>
<p>Manual email reporting is not ideal, and there are other limitations and gaps in Among Us. A more detailed filter for searching open games would be great, for instance—right now, you can only filter by number of imposters and map. Still, players are more-or-less happy. It&#39;s understood that Among Us is being made by a small team, so development will take time, and it&#39;s not a game people expect constant tweaking or paradigm-shifting meta changes from.</p>
<p>The number of concurrent Among Us players has dropped off a little bit since the height of its 2020 popularity, but it remains planted among Steam&#39;s top ten games.</p>
<h3 id="whenisthenewairshipmapreleasing">When is the new Airship map releasing?</h3>
<p>The new map, called The Airship, is coming in &quot;early 2021,&quot; so sometime before this summer, probably. It&#39;ll be free to all players, and adds ladders to the mix, as well as the ability to choose one of three starting rooms after a meeting.</p>
<h3 id="whatotheramongusupdatesarecomingandwhen">What other Among Us updates are coming, and when?</h3>
<p>The next major update will be the account system, which should help curb the hacking problem. InnerSloth is also working on adding support for more languages, and will probably fix a bunch of bugs in the next release.</p>
<p>We&#39;re not sure when that big update will come (or if we should expect a series of smaller updates), but it should be pretty soon. In November, InnerSloth said it hoped to have a barebones account system up and running in December. More recently, the studio said that it hopes to get a moderation-focused system out ASAP. Once that&#39;s in place, something more substantial will be in the works. &quot;Don&#39;t worry, we&#39;ve heard all your requests for things like a friend system, saved stats, and so on, but for now [a moderation system] will be the first thing available,&quot; said the studio in <a href="https://innersloth.itch.io/among-us/devlog/202874/the-upcoming-airship-map-consoles-and-whats-next-">a recent update</a>.</p>
<p>Longer term, InnerSloth will definitely reveal some new stuff later this year: In the section below, we learn that there are &quot;secret&quot; tasks in progress, and that InnerSloth plans to post a development roadmap at some point.</p>
<h3 id="questionsforthedeveloper">Questions for the developer</h3>
<p><strong>PC Gamer: What should players be most excited about in 2021?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Victoria Tran, Community Director:</strong>  Players can look forward to the new Airship map, which will drop in early 2021! It&#39;ll feature all new tasks, the ability to pick your starting area, ladders/moving platforms, and new places to get lost (or murdered?) in. We also have other tasks in the works but shhh, it&#39;s a secret for now.</p>
<p><strong>Aside from the account system and support for more languages, what are your top priorities when it comes to Among Us updates this year?</strong></p>
<p>Definitely the new map, among other secrets that are in the works. We&#39;re hoping to launch a roadmap so our players can know what we&#39;re working on to improve the game—can&#39;t make any promises on what we&#39;ll reveal yet, but it&#39;ll be fun!</p>
<h3 id="who39stheimposter">Who&#39;s the imposter?</h3>
<p>It&#39;s Cyan, you fools. The guilt is written all over their face!</p>

What's going on with 2020's surprise hit, and what's next.

GAMING ACCESS

The State of Among Us in 2021