Among Us was probably the more (pleasantly) surprising success story in the games industry last year. After having been out for two years, the game suddenly caught on in popularity in 2020, going on to enjoy massive success, to the extent that developer Innersloth decided to cancel the planned sequel so it could continue supporting the resurgent first game with updates and new content.
Of that new content, the next major drop – a new map – is set to arrive soon, but many have pointed out that the rollout of new updates for the game has been rather slow. In an update on their Itch.io page, Innersloth explained why that has been the case, explaining that between the game’s sudden and massive resurgence, the team’s small size, launching on new platforms, and other factors, the developer has been working toward setting up a pipeline that will be sustainable over the long term.
“Among Us gained incredible traction pretty late into 2020 that we weren’t expecting, and that meant A LOT of change for us,” wrote community director Victoria Tran. “Not to dive into too much organizational stuff, but not only did we need to switch back to working on Among Us after thinking it was done, but we also needed to set ourselves up more sustainably to work on the game. We had to spend 2 months just restructuring, figuring out new processes, and getting external partners to help us manage on board. Originally it was just 3 friends working together (and now I’m here to make 4, hi), but if we wanted this to work long term and hire up, we needed to streamline things.
“It’s all behind the scenes work, and while it meant time away from the game, it’ll make it easier for current and future us to develop the game better. Not to mention additional platforms (like Nintendo Switch and Xbox) means more support, certifications to go through, and whatnot. We have help from our porting partners for that, but it still means we need to make sure future things we do are supported on those platforms. There’s a ton of other things out of our control (legal issues, meetings, planning), so sometimes these things take longer as well.”
Among Us is available on PC, iOS, Android, and Nintendo Switch. Later this year, it is coming to Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. There’s no word yet on when we can expect a PS4 and PS5 launch, but hopefully that’ll be coming down the road as well.
