100 player Among Us is a reality, and it’s pure, glorious chaos
For the millions of you out there who have played Among Us by now you probably know a few things about the game; red is sus, don’t go into electrical, and the game is played with 4-10 players. A mod for Among Us allows you to break one of those rules, allowing for lobbies with far more players than would ever seem reasonable, and it’s actually pretty hilarious.
What does a 100 player game of Among Us look like?
Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I just want to say that you probably shouldn’t worry about trying to set up a 100 player Among Us game. Take a look at the video above and it should be clear why. For a social deduction game like Among Us, 100 players makes it nigh impossible to have a carefully paced game where players attempt to identify what few imposters are hidden within their ranks.
Instead, 100 player games involve long supply trains of crewmates slowly moving their ways through the halls of the map while various imposters kill in broad daylight. With so many people in the crowd, it becomes nearly impossible to identify who killed whom, making the first half of the game into a killing spree that is more concerned with biding time than identifying and ejecting imposters.
This is because, with so many players, the crew almost benefits more from reporting kills to put all imposter kills on cooldown, giving them precious seconds to complete tasks. However, what actually happens is that large groups of the game vote as they please, either because they saw something or as a joke, resulting in random purges throughout the game.
It’s funny, but jokes can only remain funny for so long, and at a certain point it becomes obvious that 100 players might be a bit too many for your average game of Among Us.
If you could control the player count, how many players would you allow in Among Us?
Currently, Among Us supports 12 different colors for players to adopt as their own. This would imply that the game could easily have its player count increased to 12 players with little adjustment, and that with additional colors there wouldn’t be a problem growing this number as well.
However, we must consider the ratio of imposter to crewmate that makes for the best games of Among Us. Most 10 player games have 2 imposters running around, making 20% of the players into imposters. This means that, technically, three well coordinated sets of double kills would result in an Imposter win.
A 12 player game would increase that number to four sets of double kills, something that would buy the crew much more time in a game that already supports multiple strategies to benefit the crew. If your Among Us playgroup decides to counter this by going to three imposters, then you run the risk of two sets of triple kills ending the game, something that would prevent the crew from even collecting themselves before it’s over.
Another consideration is that, as the number of imposters increases, so too does the general desire for random ejects. Even if the initial 20% ratio remains the same, the increase in the absolute imposter count means that the ratio shifts in favor of the imposters more quickly, and that the crew can’t afford to spend time gathering information.
Nevertheless, it’s probably something worth trying if your Among Us playgroup is large enough. If you want to play with 12, 15, or even 100 players, let me know what you find works best for your playgroup.