Published , by Sam Chandler
Published , by Sam Chandler
Among Us has rocketed to the top of charts and has been dominating players’ game time these past few weeks. After the initial surge in popularity, the developers were quick to announce that Among Us 2 would be entering development. Now, the small team of three developers has backflipped on that, choosing instead to focus their efforts on Among Us 1.
In a post on the Innersloth itch.io page on September 23, 2020, the developers revealed that they would not actually start work on Among Us 2 as was originally planned. Instead, the team’s energy would go toward bringing those planned features for the sequel to the original game.
One of the main reasons the team was pushing for a sequel was that the codebase for Among Us 1 is rather outdated and difficult to work with. A sequel would have allowed the team to build something from the ground up, making it significantly easier for them to add new content. Here's what the devs had to say:
Us devs have had several long discussions about what we want to do with the game. When do we stop working on Among Us 1? What content goes into Among Us 2? The main reason we are shooting for a sequel is because the codebase of Among Us 1 is so outdated and not built to support adding so much new content. However, seeing how many people are enjoying Among Us 1 really makes us want to be able to support the game and take it to the next level. We have decided to cancel Among Us 2 and instead put all our focus into improving Among Us 1. All of the content we had planned for Among Us 2 will instead go into Among Us 1. This is probably the more difficult choice because it means going deep into the core code of the game and reworking several parts of it. We have lots of things planned and we’re excited to bring new content to everyone as you continue to enjoy playing!
This is surely to curry a lot of favor in the community. Players typically don’t respond well to being asked to purchase a new game immediately after buying in. For the developers, there would surely be considerable headaches to be found in developing for two games at the same time.
The good news is that the features and improvements that were planned for the sequel will be coming to Among Us 1. Right now, the primary focus of one of the three developers is working on the server. Players often find themselves having server issues as the backend struggles with the hundreds of thousands of new players.
Innersloth has also confirmed that colorblind support is coming, a friends and account system, as well a new map, though this last one is still in the design stage. A quick look at the Among Us 2 announcement post gives a good indication of other features players can likely look forward to such as better moderation, more roles, hide and seek gameplay, and more.
While Among Us 2 has been canceled, the team of three developers at Innersloth have shifted their entire focus to improving Among Us 1. It sounds like it will be the more challenging option, but it’s sure to pay off.