Sequel: Among Us 2

Innersloth and Schell Games, the game’s developers, talk to GameCentral about making Among Us a virtual reality game.

Few games have had the same level of success as Among Us. Initially met with a muted reception when it was debuted in 2018, the social deduction game was transformed into a household name two years later, at the height of the pandemic, by Twitch and YouTube personalities.

Innersloth’s intentions for a sequel were sidetracked by the unexpected success, and they’ve since focused their efforts on upgrading and expanding the original such that it’s available on every device imaginable.

Among Us VR is the final logical step toward multiplatform dominance, but it promises to be more inventive than your average port. Among Us VR is a partnership between Innersloth and Schell Games, the firm behind VR games like I Expect You To Die and Until You Fall. It’s designed as a standalone experience that won’t work with other versions. 

Jesse Schell, co-founder of Schell Games says; “[We had] a lot of discussion about doing cross-play with the original Among Us but what we realised was, necessarily, the VR play does have to be a little different. We realised that to be able to balance between the two games, it was unlikely that we were going to be able to make that feel right. We realised we would have to water down the VR version if we were going to completely connect it and it wasn’t feeling like the right thing to do. It felt like, no, we should let it be its own game and that way it can have its own game balance and not be restricted by trying to map exactly to the original game.”

According to the creator, the communication protocols in Among Us VR are a significant reason for this. 

Unlike the original, which only allowed players to text chat during meetings and required them to use external platforms like Discord for voice communication, Among Us VR takes use of the microphone on VR headsets to provide a totally vocal experience for up to ten players.

Schell adds; “That would have made it hard to translate across. Not everyone’s going to want to use the microphone-based system, so we’re looking at having different modes of communication in the game but trying to make it as VR-friendly as possible.”

Among Us VR is already a virtual reality game for some. Fan-made versions have circulated on VRChat, a virtual world platform dominated by community mods and creations, since the original reached the stratosphere in 2020. One mod by Jar recreates the initial level in Among Us, The Skeld, in 3D space and works well in VR – albeit with human-sized crewmates rather than the cutesy bean-like humanoids of the original.