Among Us launches for Nintendo Switch
Innersloth made the surprise announcement that Among Us is now available on the Nintendo Switch.
For the past few months Among Us players have been doing tasks, venting around, betraying their friends, and voting each other off the ship on PC and mobile devices. The 2020 surprise indie hit is now available to Nintendo Switch players.
Why bring Among Us to the Nintendo Switch?
Players have been curious what a console version of Among Us would look like for quite some time, and it makes sense that the first console port would be the Switch. The Nintendo Switch allows players to play either on their TVs like a traditional console, or as a handheld device in much the same way as a phone.
Because Among Us is already optimized to run on a variety of small handheld devices, it makes sense that the Nintendo Switch’s audience would be the most likely place to expand to. This is further aided by the fact that, compared to PS4 and Xbox One owners, fewer Switch players will have either a smartphone or dedicated PC to play the game on.
This is especially true for younger gamers who may have only a Switch as their means of gaming. Now, a brand new audience can get in on the fun of trying to find imposters in a cramped space ship.
The Nintendo Switch version of Among Us supports both online and local multiplayer as well as full crossplay with the other platforms.
Specific challenges to playing Among Us on Switch
While it is possible to play Among Us on the Switch, playing on console does create specific obstacles to the game.
First of all, lacking a dedicated keyboard like PC’s or phones will make communicating much more difficult. This can be circumvented by playing with a dedicated playgroup and using a voice chat app like Discord to talk instead, but doing so would defeat the purpose of playing on Switch rather than on whatever device is running Discord.
Another challenge is the fact that many of the tasks were built with touchscreens in mind. For PCs this isn’t too much of an issue as a mouse can generally accomplish anything that a touchscreen can. For Among Us players playing on the Switch however, they will have to use their joycons to approximate a mouse - something which can be challenging and imprecise.
Porting Among Us over to the Switch still seems like a good idea, but it’s clear that the game wasn’t built with this possibility in mind. However, with this port now available, Innersloth may keep possible future developments in mind when developing and implementing new features.
Perhaps the other notably missing feature is the ability to play mods. Among Us has a surprisingly active modding community that has created their own game modes and features which, unfortunately, will likely never be compatible with the Switch version of the game.
It might not be the most natural way to play Among Us, but at least Switch players have the option.